Venue : Melbourne Cricket Ground, Melbourne.
Toss : Australia Women won the toss and opt to bat.
Captain’s view
Harmanpreet Kaur: My mom’s sitting somewhere in the stands. It’s a pressure game and we also wanted to bat first. We are quite confident while chasing, hopefully the bowlers restrict them. We did some indoor practice. We are trying to staying together, because you are not getting games it tends to affect your focus. We want to treat this like any other game and give our best shot.
Meg Lanning: We are going to have a bat, looks a good wicket. Crowd’s amazing, looking forward to it. Every game has been close, it’s been cut-throat, but we need to be at our best today. India are a great side, hopefully it’s a great game. We are going in with the same team tonight.
Squad
India Women (Playing XI): Shafali Verma, Smriti Mandhana, Taniya Bhatia(w), Jemimah Rodrigues, Harmanpreet Kaur(c), Veda Krishnamurthy, Deepti Sharma, Shikha Pandey, Radha Yadav, Poonam Yadav, Rajeshwari Gayakwad.
Australia Women (Playing XI): Alyssa Healy(w), Beth Mooney, Meg Lanning(c), Rachael Haynes, Ashleigh Gardner, Sophie Molineux, Nicola Carey, Jess Jonassen, Georgia Wareham, Delissa Kimmince, Megan Schutt.
Australia batting
Massive opening partnership
Defending champion Australia gets into ground in order to register their fifth victory in the T20I women’s world cup. Healy and Mooney gets in the crease, Healy is on strike. Deepti Sharma opens the attack against Aussies. Healy strike the first ball towards boundary and starts aggressively.
An early catch dropped by Shafali at covers which would cost India. Australia hits 14 runs in the first over of the match bowled by Deepti Sharma. Australian players starts to strike aggressively that Indian bowlers can’t face them. Both openers have got a life each due to the poor fielding set up. At the end of power play Australia scored 49 runs without a wicket loss.
50-run stand
Poonam Yadav to Mooney, 50-run stand up, their 10th one in this format. Openers stand strong and seems settled in the ground with form. Healy in the 7th over bowled by Gayakwad hit back to back six and boost the score to 70 by scoring 16 runs of that over.
With a boundary Healy scored her half century. she has set the stage on fire. Raises her bat to acknowledge the huge crowd support. Gets to the milestone with a loft down the ground, played that straight as an arrow.
Strike hat-trick six
Healy seems unstoppable as she strike hat-trick sixes in Shikha Pandey’s over and brings a 100-run stand up between Healy and Mooney. Indian bowlers get in pressure to break this partnership as Aussies crossed 100 runs at their 11th over.
Indian fans breathe again
Finally India got the break through as expected by uprooting Healy for 75 runs. Indian fans breathe again, but Healy has gotten Australia off to a superb start. The hosts couldn’t have asked for anything more from her. Nothing stops Aussies from scoring as their other players continued their strike without any second chance.
Mooney reached her 9th T20I fifty after a single from Poonam Yadav’s over. Two fifties from two openers, Australia stands tall with this strong base.
Deepti Sharma’s two wicket
Deepti Sharma dismissed Lanning(16) and Gardner(2) in the same over and slow down their run rate. But Aussies already crossed 150 runs and placed them self in a comfortable zone.
Mooney stands un defeated
Mooney’s boundary kept Aussies alive in the match and dragged towards scoring big. Australia scored 184 runs in 20 overs, Aussies players exposed their aggressive strike and dragged Australia towards this massive score. Mooney stands un-defeated in ground with a score of 78 runs.
Over-view
Those are massive runs. India will feel they have restricted a bit, especially with Healy going berserk. Australia were 114/0 in 11 overs. Healy was unbelievable with her powerhitting. Hubby Starc was all smiles in the hospitality zone. India began with spin. Deepti Sharma started the game with three full tosses and that was the momentum Healy needed. Clean hitting and then Shafali helped by dropping her fifth ball of the game. India were poor with their bowling – either overpitching or too short. Basically they hardly bowled to the field. Their bodylanguage was so down and Kaur’s look when Healy smashed a hat-trick of sixes said it all
India’s batting
Shafali Verma dismissed at the beginning
With an dream to achieve their maiden world cup trophy, Indian women’s team gets in ground in their special day. The Aussies greatest fear Shafali Verma is in strike, Schutt who mentioned about Shafali Verma earlier gets in attack. Soon Shafali Verma dismissed by Schutt at an very early stage and give a lightning attack to India.
Struggled India
After Shafali Verma’s wicket India seems to be in very bad situation but except other players to show their ability in order to win the trophy. In the very next over India got two major blow as Bhatia return pavilion with retired hurt as missed a sweep and get hit on the helmet. In the last ball of the over India lose their belief as Rodrigues departures without scoring any.
With a couple of boundaries from Mandhana, fans expect India would get in the game. But soon Molineux scatters every Indian dream by dismissing Mandhana for 11 runs. Indian skipper Kaur too return pavilion for 4 runs without showing any massive strikes. At the end of 10 overs India scored 51 runs for 4 wicket loss and seems this women’s day won’t be a special day for them.
India starts losing wicket in a regular interval of time and struggled to drag towards a descent defeat. Though India seems strong in their league matches, finals show them the real cricket. At the end of 15th over India scored 81 runs for 5 wicket loss.
Without reaching 100
India’s struggled to beat Australia buts ends without scoring 100 runs in total. India scored 99 runs for 10 wicket lose and will return home without the trophy. Australia beats India by 85 runs and bags their trophy. This women’s day seems to be a great day for Australia as they registered their 5th win in the ICC Women’s T20 World cup.
Over view
It was a dominating performance from the top-ranked side. Australia bullying their opponents in a World Cup final, that’s become a routine hasn’t it! Everything went right for them on the big night. They out-batted, out-bowled and out-fielded India. Healy set the stage on fire with an entertaining innings at the top and Beth Mooney complemented her well. The reactions when Healy smashed hat-trick of sixes said it all. Kaur was shell-shocked and the two Australian openers had bright smiles on their faces.
Australian players talk
Ashleigh Gardner: Having a home crowd was amazing. It’s an honour to play for my country and represent my culture as well. I never thought I’d play in front of 86000 people. It was incredible to see the Mexican wave.
Jess Jonassen: Feels absolutely incredible at the moment. How good was that (the Mexican wave). We had a massive 12 months leading to this and we didn’t have the smoothest of the tournaments, but we had our best game today.
Megan Schutt: I am absolutely overwhelmed, the atmosphere couldn’t have been any better. I was excited and ready to go, been waiting for this since a long time. They came out with so much confidence, the openers. We all are happy to be here and be a part of this event. We just want to enjoy every moment.
Rachael Haynes: It’s incredible (feeling), hard to put it in words. To come out today and put out that sort of a performance today was so special. The support for the game was great and it was great to be part of this experience.
Player of the match
Alyssa Healy(Australia)
Batting : 75 runs from 39 balls
Alyssa Healy: It was unbelievable, thank you everyone. You can’t wipe out the smile out of my face. It’s the nature of how I play, just needed a little bit of luck. Just went out there and enjoyed my time. Mooney is sensational. She got off strike and let me do my thing. We are having a lot of fun together.
Player of the series
Beth Mooney(Australia)
Beth Mooney: The crowd has been amazing right throughout the tournament, I’m lost for words. I think we stuck to our processes, if it wasn’t your day someone else chipped in. We sort of knew what went wrong against India in the first game and we worked on our plans accordingly. Everyone did pretty well, and we had the support of 87000 people. I like to challenge myself and find new ways to be the best in the world. We have great support around us and I’ve been very fortunate. I’ll keep going along as long as I can. I’d love to take the gloves, but I’m not that bad in the outfield either.
Captain’s view
Meg Lanning: I’m just proud of this group. We have had ups and downs. To put this kind of performance on the biggest day is outstanding. There was a lot of expectations from us. We were hoping to be there. To get here was a significant achievement. We had to change our tactics quickly, had to execute on the big stage. I knew she’s (Schutt) going to perform well. I’d like to thank all the support staff, to family and friends. And, also to the fans, I’m happy to play in front of you.
Harmanpreet Kaur: The way we played in the league stages, it was outstanding. It was unfortunate to drop those catches today. Upcoming one and half years is important. The future is good for us, we need to trust ourselves. You have to keep learning. The first game was very good, it gave us a lot of confidence. We spent a lot of time together, unfortunate for us not to win today. We have to keep working hard. We are in the right line, every year we are improving. We need to play with more focus. Sometimes, we are not able to give our best. This year we are hoping for some more games in the Women’s T20 Challenge. That tournament is very important. Hopefully, we do get more players.
