Batting failure led India to a 44-run loss to Australia in their first warm-up cricket match of the Women’s T20 World Cup here on Monday. The Indian team had a target of 130 runs but their entire team was bundled out for 85 runs in 16 overs. Deepti Sharma scored the most unbeaten 19 runs from her side. After this comes the number of additional runs (18). Only three of India’s batsmen reached double digits. Harleen Deol scored 12 and Anjil Sarwani scored 11 runs. India’s four top-order batsmen had returned to the pavilion by 22 runs. These included the experienced Smriti Mandhana (zero) and Shafali Verma (two).
Captain Harmanpreet Kaur did not bat. For Australia, Darcy Brown took four wickets for 17 runs. Australia had earlier scored 129 runs for eight wickets with the contribution of the tail batsmen. Georgia Wareham, who landed at number nine from her side, scored the most unbeaten 32 runs. For India, Shikha Pandey, Pooja Vastrakar and Radha Yadav took two wickets each. India will play its next warm-up match against Bangladesh on February 8. His first match in the World Cup will be against arch-rivals Pakistan on 12 February.
