The Indian women’s cricket team leveled the five-match series 1-1 by defeating Australia in a super over in the second T20 International cricket match here on Sunday. With this, India also put a stop to Australia’s winning campaign of the last 16 T20 matches. This is Australia’s first defeat in 2022 in any format. Chasing Australia’s target of 188, India scored a half-century from Smriti Mandhana (79) and her first wicket partnership of 76 with Shefali Verma (34) and 61 for the third wicket with captain Harmanpreet Kaur (21). Scored 187 runs on the wicket.
Richa Ghosh (26 not out in 13 balls, three sixes) and Devika Vaidya (11 not out in five balls, two fours) played a key role in tying the match in the end. Heather Graham, making her debut for Australia, took three wickets for 22 runs. Australia scored 187 for one with half-centuries from openers Beth Mooney (82 not out) and Tahlia McGrath (70 not out) and a record century partnership of 158 for the second wicket between the two. Mooney hit 13 fours in his 54-ball knock while Tahlia hit 10 fours and a six in her 51-ball innings.
India started with Richa and Smriti in their first super over in history. Richa hit Heather’s first ball for a six but waved the next ball in the air and caught her. Smriti hit a four on the fourth ball and then a six on the next ball. India scored 20 runs with three runs off the last ball. India chose Renuka Singh for the bowling. Australia fielded captain Alyssa Healy and Ashleigh Gardner. Healy hit the first ball for a four but Renuka missed the chance to run him out on the next ball.
On the third ball, Ashleigh handed a catch to Radha Yadav at long off. Tahlia could only score one run on the next ball. Alyssa scored 10 runs off the last two balls but Australia could manage only 16 runs and India won. Mooney and Tahlia’s partnership was the highest partnership for any wicket against India and also the highest partnership for any wicket by Australia. Thanks to Mooney and Tahlia, Australia’s team was able to add 118 runs in the last 11 overs.
The only wicket from India went to the account of Deepti Sharma, who spent 31 runs in four overs. Chasing the target, India got off to a good start by the pair of Smriti and Shefali Verma (34). Smriti took an aggressive stand from the beginning. He opened the account with a four off Ashleigh Gardner and then hit three fours off Kim Garth in the next over. Shafali also hit Megan Schutt and Kim for fours and then welcomed Ellyse Perry with two consecutive fours. Shefali, however, got lucky in Ellis’ first over itself when Megan dropped her catch at deep cover.
India scored 55 runs without losing a wicket in the power play. Shefali hit Megan for the first six of the innings in the eighth over but in the next over, Tahlia was caught by Elena in the covers. He hit four fours and a six in his 23-ball innings. Jemimah Rodrigues (04) opened the account with a four off Elena but was trapped leg before by Heather Graham in the next over. Smriti then found a fine partner in skipper Harmpreet Kaur (21).
Harmanpreet showed her attitude by hitting a four and a six over the leg, while Smriti took the team’s score past 100 runs in the 12th over with a four over Kim. Smriti completed her half-century in 37 balls with sixes and fours on consecutive balls of Elena. In the next over, he also hit Megan for six and four on consecutive balls. India needed 55 runs to win in the last five overs. Smriti hit Heather for a six but Harmanpreet caught Mooney off the fast bowler’s bowling.
Harmanpreet hit two fours and a six in his 22-ball innings. Australia captain Alyssa Hailey then handed the ball to Annabel Sutherland. Smriti welcomed him with a straight six but hit the wickets the next ball. He faced 49 balls and hit nine fours and four sixes. Richa Ghosh looked in good touch right from the start. He opened the account with a six on Anabel and then hit two sixes on Ashleigh as well. India needed 18 runs in the last two overs to win. Deepti Sharma (02) caught by Elena off the bowling of Heather.
Only four runs were scored in this over of Heather. India needed 14 runs in the last over. Megan’s second ball took the outer edge of Devika Vaidya’s (11 not out) bat and went for four runs. Only four runs came off the next three balls, leaving India needing five runs off the last ball. Devika hit a four off the last ball to tie the match and pull it into the super over. Earlier, Harmanpreet won the toss and invited Australia to bat first, after which the team got off to a brisk start.
Alyssa Healy (25 runs in 15 balls, five fours) took an aggressive approach and hit three fours on Renuka Singh and two fours on Anjali Sarwani. Alyssa, however, was caught by Devika Vaidya at backward point off Deepti in the fourth over. Mooney and Tahlia then took the team’s score to 46 for one in the power play. Tahlia opened the account with a four on Deepti. Tahlia hit Meghna Singh for two fours in the eighth over while Mooney also hit a four to make it 14 runs in the over.
Mooney took the team’s score past 100 runs in the 13th over with three fours off spinner Radha Yadav and then hit Renuka for two consecutive fours. Tahlia completed the half-century in just 37 balls with fours and sixes on consecutive balls of leg-spinner Devika. Mooney also scored his third consecutive half-century against India in 38 balls with two consecutive fours off left-arm spinner Radha. Meanwhile, Mooney and Tahlia shared their second consecutive century partnership against India. Both of them added an unbeaten 100 runs for the second wicket in the first T20 match at the same ground. Mooney adopted a more aggressive approach in the final overs. He hit Deepti for three consecutive fours in the 19th over.
