The Australia women’s team is always up for a challenge and what a show it put on overcoming all odds, and a desperate Indian side, to go unchallenged in the group stage of the T20 World Cup
A win streak of 15 T20 World Cup games. Unbeaten in the tournament since 2020. Four wins out of four games in their pool in the current edition. A Net Run Rate in the pink of health (+2.223).
Australia is probably the one side that feels the most ‘at home’ in World events. This is particularly enviable in a World Cup that has thrown people and teams out of their comfort zones from the get go.
Well in control of its semifinal bid, the Aussies faced India in what was the final group game for both teams.
The cricketing gods decided to throw in a big curveball just to spice things up. Australia skipper Alyssa Healy was left walking on crutches, her right leg secured in a moon boot after picking up an acute foot injury in their win against Pakistan. Healy has been arterial to this India vs Australia rivalry over the past few years and the news of her missing out would have definitely eased a percentage, however big or small, of India’s anxieties.
Grace Harris, who was dismissed for a golden duck against New Zealand in what was her only other game of the World Cup, opened alongside Beth Mooney. The latter was the designated ’keeper for the day. Darcie Brown came in for Tayla Vlaeminck, another casualty in that Pakistan game who had tragically dislocated her shoulder even before she could bowl her first ball of the tournament.
Poles apart
The energies on the field were as different as chalk and cheese. The Indians were upbeat, noisy almost. The Aussies, at the other end, were muted.
No screams, cheers. A serious huddle and a few tight hugs later, they were off to set a target for a desperate Indian side to chase. Healy hobbled in, engaging in a few last-minute chats with the bowlers.
“She’s such a passionate cricketer that she wanted to be involved in every single aspect. She was in our meeting today when we were working out match-ups and that, and from all reports she was a very painful watcher who just wanted to be out there and wanted to be involved,” stand-in skipper Tahlia McGrath would reveal after the game.
India faced an undesirable hiccup of its own when Asha Sobhana, who rolled her arm to warm-up just before the anthems were sung, ended up injuring her knee before the ball left her hand. Radha Yadav was sent in to take her place while the management ran the swap by the opponent.
The Aussies, hurting from injuries to their own soldiers, were happy to empathise and accommodate.
Brick by brick
Australia showed remarkable awareness of the speed limit for scoring runs at this venue. Go too fast too early and they risked a batting crash orchestrated by Renuka Singh. Mooney and Georgia Wareham fell early, which meant the air around Harris got twice as hot.
No stranger to the perils of opening, the eccentric allrounder decided to dial down the tempo. With McGrath, who promoted herself ahead of Ellyse Perry, Harris stitched a 62-run stand from 54 deliveries. The burger-loving big hitter did show glimpses of her quirky self, a gentle scoop off Pooja Vastrakar for a boundary being a fine example. Australia accelerated when there was space to, happy to capitalise on the faster deliveries to steer the ball long with more success.
Any advantage India ceded through fielding lapses and dropped catches– at least five lifelines through the innings – was at risk of being cancelled out by India’s potent 12th man – the crowd.
“For us, it’s almost about trying to ignore the crowd at times because they can make you seem like you’re behind the game when you maybe might not be,” McGrath said after the game.
The nerves of the occasion got to India too, more than once. Deepti Sharma dropped her UP Warriorz teammate Harris in the ninth over, but tested her aplenty with deliveries turning into middle and leg, cramping Harris for space.
While India allowed the Aussies room to run, there were 22 dot balls in the first seven overs. McGrath and Harris managed to step on the gas and get Australia to 65/2 at the halfway stage. As the floodlights flickered and the music blared to entertain spectators, India head coach Amol Muzumdar was in the ear of his captain and her deputy. They needed to unsettle the opponent.
Escalation
McGrath emerged from Renuka’s last over, and a review for LBW, unscathed. After copping a ball to the leg, India subbed Renuka with Sajeevan Sajana, a better fielder. Strategic? Not bad at all, if it was.
Radha, who wasn’t even supposed to bowl in this game, brought India a much-needed breakthrough on her third try. The first was dropped by Harmanpreet at short cover. An elevation sans distance off the next ball also landed safely beyond a diving Harmanpreet. The Aussie skipper then came down the track hoping to go big once again but missed and was stumped by Richa. No one was happier and more relieved than Harmanpreet who ran in to give Radha a tight hug.
But Australia backs power with power. Imagine the relief of watching one dangerous batter go only to see Ellyse Perry, with her glassy eyes and twirling of the bat in hand, coming to you.
Mithali Raj, calling the game on the world feed, was in the middle of explaining why Australia could touch 160 if a set batter – Harris – carried her bat when she fell, Deepti doing the honours.
It was a tall ask, expecting two new batters – Perry and Ashleigh Gardner – to open the dam quickly on a surface like this.
Pooja, who got smacked down the ground for four, banked on her short ball to remove Gardner, with help from the ever-reliable Radha at cover.
Harmanpreet’s acrobatics on the field worsened the discomfort in her neck (which had forced her to not field at all against Sri Lanka). From that point, Smriti took charge of the field, as her captain drooped a little due to the pain.
In the 17th over, Litchfield – going for the reverse sweep with a very switch-hit-like stance change – took a hit to the pads. Sue Redfern immediately raised her finger, Litchfield was half way back despite Perry convincing her to review. A long replay, plenty of contentions from Smriti and Deepti and some giggles from the Aussies later, the decision was overturned. Perry quickly put her arm around Litchfield. That delivery needed to be forgotten and the duo needed to go all out.
From 127/5 at the end of that over, Australia finished with 151/8 on the board. This despite three wickets falling and a quiet over from Radha. There was another dropped catch by Jemimah Rodrigues this time, when she gave Sophie Molineux a reprieve, but was quick to effect a run out seconds later. That the total went past 150 courtesy a six o Litchfield’s bat would have stung the Indian dugout further.
Harmanpreet and the Aussies
Knowing the downside of batting fourth on a wicket baking under the hot Sharjah sun for most part, Shafali Verma and Smriti started their chase with trepidation for the first over and a half. Shafali then got a move on, with a 12-run over off Megan Schutt. However, the pyrotechnics were short-lived. By the end of the PowerPlay, both openers were gone, courtesy the spin duo of Gardner and Molineux. Jemimah, too, began with aggression but could only last for 12 balls, Schutt craftily using the short ball to trigger a dismissal.
It came down to Harmanpreet and Deepti who had a mountain to climb, needing 104 runs from 78 balls.
The Australians knew what they were dealing with in Harmanpreet. No one had obsessed about her unbeaten 171 in the 2017 World Cup semi final against them more than they did. The loss that innings effected triggered a seismic shift in the way the ecosystem functioned in Australia.
Mooney, more recently, had also seen a truncated version of ‘Harmonster’ (as the moniker goes for when she goes on a rampage) in the WPL earlier this year when she scored an unbeaten 95 off just 48 balls for Mumbai Indians against Mooney’s side Gujarat Giants.
“She controls run chases unbelievably well,” McGrath said, in reflection. “When Harman’s at the wicket in a run chase, you never feel fully in control because she can just go through the gears really quickly and take a game away from you.”
It took eight and a half overs to break the 63-run stand between this pair when Molineux sent back Deepti. But the Indians were never completely allowed to break free. The pair had to earn their ones and twos and there were just six boundaries in this passage of play.
Richa departed cheaply yet again. Schutt was imperious in that over – the game’s 17th – giving away just one run, an over McGrath would hail as crucial to the win, especially in a game that saw even the Aussies put down two catches and concede four wides and a no ball.
India needed 41 runs from 24 balls. Harmanpreet had done far more with far less. From striking at under 100 at one point, she turned the knob a few levels higher and took on Gardner, with back to back fours in the 18th over. It came down to the last over with 14 runs needed for a famous win.
If you were in the stadium, the tension– whether you were a loyalist or a neutral– felt like someone was standing on your chest.
Alas, the old tale was told once more. Nerves ruled all as India lost four wickets in six balls with Harmanpreet helplessly watching at the other end.
McGrath entrusted Annabel Sutherland with the ball. She first ripped through Pooja’s stumps. Arundhati Reddy, the new batter tasked with getting her captain back on strike, sacrificed her wicket in the process. Sutherland was shrewd as she went full, allowing Harmanpreet no room to get the ball across the fence. Settle for a single, she seemed to say.
Her next delivery was wide, but a mix up in the middle saw Mooney catch Shreyanka Patil short of her crease. Radha, who came in next, walked back as quickly as she walked in courtesy a full length ball copped on the pads. All Renuka could do was a single off the last ball of the innings.
“I asked Bellsy (Sutherland) how her heart rate was after that last over and she said, ‘I’m fine. I’m chill’,” McGrath revealed. Great way to sum up this outfit’s brand of cricket. Cool, composed, catastrophic.
Plenty of what ifs
Australia has bested India by the barest of margins one too many times in the recent past. In 2022, the Aussies denied India the joy of a Commonwealth Games gold medal by beating Harmanpreet and Co. by nine runs. Last year, India was ousted from the T20 World Cup courtesy a five-run win for Meg Lanning’s Australia in the semifinal.
Perhaps that’s why these defeats hurt as much as they do. A straight thrashing would give you a reality check of your standard and send you back to the drawing board with the urge to learn. But this could have been India’s game. They could have been wiping their brows after securing a place in the knockouts. The list of ‘what ifs’ and ‘if onlys’ will be long and painful for a side that has come close to World Cup glory a fair number of times in the last two decades.
But this moment belongs to Australia alone. In keeping a scary win streak alive in the World Cups, getting through captaincy changes due to retirement and injury, and building a squad where anyone can step up for a trial by fire, the Aussies are the gold standard in the women’s game.
They may not have had much luck on their side, or the adoration of a nearly 15,000-strong crowd. But they have the audacity of world champions to always take a challenge by its horns. They’ve attempted the four-peat before. Can they succeed this time? We’ll have our answer soon.