Australia women's became the first team to enter the semi-finals of the ICC women's World Cup after an eight-wicket win over the Indian eves. Meg Lanning and Ellyse Perry's 100+ runs stand guided Australia home in what was a pretty ease game for the Aussies.
Choosing to bowl first, Australia restricted India to just 226 on the board despite a century from Punam Raut.
India have a tough road ahead with Mithali Raj and her troops now facing a do or die game against New Zealand on Saturday. The winner of that game will be guaranteed a place in the semis.
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Two losses on a trot have put India's entire campaign in jeopardy. Without further ado, here are the five things that went wrong for India in their defeat against the Aussies.
#5 Losing wickets in clusters at the end
After a short partnership between Punam Raut and Harmanpreet Kaur for the fourth wicket, India's batting fell apart and lost wickets one after the other. Raut slogged one to deep square leg and then on the next ball, Veda Krishnamurthy was run out in a big mix up between her and Kaur.
Sushma Verma, Jhulan Goswami and Harmanpreet Kaur all lost their wickets in the final five overs in a bid to up the ante.
From a strong position of being at 203/2, India's middle order fluffed yet again and were quickly reduced to 211/6. In another shocking event, India's one of the most consistent batters and their best one from the last game, Deepti Sharma was sent to bat at number 9.
She usually bats at number 5 or 6 but was weirdly not judged as fit to go into bat after Veda Krishnamurthy was run out.
#4 Another disappointing outing for Smriti Mandhana
India's bid for a quick start has depended on Smriti Mandhana having a good day. It again proved to be the case against Australia as after Smriti's dismissal in the first four overs, India's run rate became stagnated with today's score of 27 in the first 10 overs being their second lowest in the World Cup.
Mandhana was at the crease for 10 deliveries but looked extremely tentative in her stay. She struggled against the spinner, Gardner and eventually nicked one off a quicker one. This was Mandhana's fourth single-digit score in a row after a solid start to the competition.
She appears to be lacking confidence at the moment and needs to play without any burden to be able to get on with her natural style.
#3 Poor fielding again being the bane for India
Defending a low score, India needed to be alert on the field and give their all in the field. But they did exactly opposite of that as barring Deepti Sharma's run out of Beth Mooney, India were abysmal in the field. Fielding lapses were happening every other over with misfields going for a boundary on more than two occasions.
The intent was lacking in the field with the Indians already looking lost when the openers were having a go. Australia saved at least 10 runs with their electric fielding but the exact opposite can be said of the Indians who were not aware of the situation and at times were lethargic.
Improving in this aspect should be India's number one priority before their next game.
#2 Slow partnership between Mithali Raj and Punam Raut
It was a historic game for Mithali Raj who became the highest run scorer in the history of women's cricket in this format. She also became the first player to score 6000 runs.
But her record-breaking knock came at a price for India as she played an agonisingly slow knock. The partnership between Raj and Raut crossed the 150 runs mark but it was so slow till the 30th over which gave Australia a commanding hold of the game.
Raut looked eager to try some shots and was trying to keep the scoreboard ticking. But Raj seemed to have thought too much of the occasion and concentrated on seeing out the overs rather than looking to hit in the gaps. India played a staggering 159 dot balls in today's batting effort which is just not done in a crunch World Cup game.
#1 A bad day in the office for the spinners
India have depended heavily on their spinners in the World Cup to take wickets at regular intervals and win them games. But against the experienced batting attack of Australia, the Indian spinners failed to trouble them and were taken to the cleaners.
Ekta Bisht - India's leading wicket taker was hit for three fours in her first over and she never recovered from that.
Harmanpreet Kaur could not bowl for longer spells and hence could not settle according to the wicket. Deepti Sharma was decent, to begin with, but leaked runs in her second and third spells. Australia scored 90% of their runs off the back foot which displayed how much time the batters had in facing the Indian spinners.
Poonam Yadav was the only bowler who troubled the Australians but she too was also targeted in her first spell by Meg Lanning.
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