Courtesy: BCCI/X
On Sunday, October 13, the Indian cricket team lost by nine runs against Australia in the Women’s T20 World Cup 2024 Group A match at the Sharjah Cricket Stadium. In pursuit of the 152-run target set by Australia, the Indian batting lineup were within touching distance of going past the finishing line, but Annabel Sutherland held her nerve while defending 14 runs in the final over despite the fact that Harmanpreet Kaur was in the middle.
With this heartbreaking defeat, India stayed put in second place in Group A behind Australia, who have made it through to the semi-final of the Women’s T20 World Cup 2024 with four straight wins. The Women in Blue have played all their four matches in the group stage of the tournament, registering two wins and two losses, to earn four points along with the net run rate of (0.322), to keep themselves ahead of New Zealand (0.282), who are on same points as them, but with a game in hand against Pakistan.
India need Pakistan to defeat New Zealand to help them reach semi-final of Women's T20 World Cup 2024
As far as the hopes of making it through to the semi-final of the Women’s T20 World Cup is concerned, India need a huge favour from their arch-rivals Pakistan. If New Zealand are able to defeat Pakistan, then they will definitely reach the knockout stage of the tournament alongside Australia from Group A, but a defeat could knock them out of the competition as well.
Moreover, at the Sharjah Cricket Stadium, after winning the toss, Tahlia McGrath, the Australian stand-in captain, who had replaced the injured Alyssa Healy, decided to bat first on a pitch which was expected to provide assistance to the spinners in the Women’s T20 World Cup 2024 clash. In their batting innings, Australia posted a very good score of 151/8 with Grace Harris scoring 40 off 41, while Tahlia McGrath and Ellyse Perry got 30s, and for India, Renuka Singh and Deepti Sharma picked up a couple of wickets each.
In the run chase, India lost both their openers Shafali Verma (20 off 13) and Smriti Mandhana (6 off 12) before Jemimah Rodrigues’ quick-fire innings didn’t last for long either. After that, the experienced pairing of Harmanpreet Kaur and Deepti Sharma put together a crucial partnership of 63 runs for the fourth wicket, to keep India in the match despite the required run rate going past 10 per over due to some quality defensive bowling from Australia.
Ultimately, the unbeaten fighting innings of 54 from 47 from Harmanpreet Kaur went in vain as India could only get up to 142/9 in their allotted overs, nine runs short of the winning target.
