Women's T20 World Cup 2023: India Suffer Heartbreaking Loss To Australia

Australia advanced into the ICC Women's T20 World Cup 2023 final after defeating India by five runs in the first semifinal on Thursday. 

Australia women scored 172/4 in the first innings, as Beth Mooney hit 54 off 37 balls, while Meg Lanning and Ashleigh Gardner hit 49* and 31 runs respectively.

Chasing the target of 173 runs, India women lost three quick wickets and were reduced to 28/3 in 3.4 overs, before Jemimah Rodrigues and Harmanpreet Kaur scripted a comeback.

Coming in at no. 4 for Team India, Jemimah Rodrigues hit a quickfire knock of 43 runs in 24 balls at a strike rate of 179.17. Her wicket reduced India to 97/4 in the 11th over.

India captain Harmanpreet Kaur, on the other hand, hit 52 runs off 34 balls and was dismissed after an unfortunate runout in the 15th over of the run chase. 

Harmanpreet was runout at an important stage of the chase, after her bat got stuck to the pitch while she was looking to complete an easy single.

While Sneh Rana hit 11 runs off 10 balls, star allrounder Deepti Sharma remained unbeaten on 20 runs off 17 balls but failed to take India through to victory.

Yastika Bhatia and Harmanpreet Kaur were the two Indian batters who lost their wickets to run outs at the penultimate stage of the tournament.

This will be the seventh consecutive appearance at the T20 World Cup final for Australia women, as they eye their third consecutive title.