What a night it
turned out to be on 20th July 2017 ~ the Indian women excelled with
their performance. ~ and it should be another cracker of a contest on Sunday –
the finals between England and India.
Harmanpreet Kaur
played one of the great innings: destructive, breathtaking, and full of class.
She also had one of the most epic meltdowns when she thought her partner had
been run out – and she did not celebrate her hundered ! 171 from 115 balls, and she finished with an injury. Was limping
between the wickets, and didn’t field. After a slow start, her heroinic effort catapulted
India to 281-4 in a reduced innings of 42 overs. The next best score was Raj’s
36.
The score card
finally reads : India women 281 for 4 (Kaur 171*, Raj 36) beat Australia
women(Blackwell 90, Villani 75, Deepti 3-59) by 36 runs ~ but there was so much
of drama in between, most enjoyable from Indian angle.
A perfect restart
for India followed. Australia were pegged three times in the opening eight
overs, Jhulan Goswami removed the consistent Aussie Meg Lanning for her first duck since August
2014 with the ball of the tournament (angling in, before leaving the
right-hander for dead and clipping her off stump). Ellyse Perry and Elyse
Villani fought back. Villani led the charge in a century partnership off 89
balls in which the second 50 took 39. When Villani was dismissed for 75 – a
career best – and Perry and Alyssa Healy followed in 33 balls, India were back
in control.
The game looked well
set for India at that point, with
Australia requiring 113 from the final 57 balls. Alex Blackwell disagreed. Aged
33, this may well be her last World Cup and she marshalled the No11, Kristen
Beams, expertly while bringing up a half-century from 36 balls, which included
six fours and, at the end of the 35th over, the first six of the Australia
innings. She went on to hit two more
huge sixes down the ground and five more fours. But, on 90, with 37 needed from
the final 12 balls, she was bowled by Sharma to hand India victory. She
contributed 65 to the last-wicket stand of 76, which is a record for the 10th
wicket in women’s ODIs. But that is a dull silver lining to a second world
tournament in as many years that Australia have left empty-handed.
Well done Team
India ~ Sunday, we are eager to see another repeat performance and the World
Cup
With regards – S.
Sampathkumar
21st
July 2017
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