India Beats Australia - Enters Finals of ICC Women World Cup 2017

What a night it turned out to be on 20^th 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
21^st July 2017