India crawl to 130/8 in second women's T20 against Australia

With the batters failing to convert starts, India could only manage a paltry 130/8 against Australia in the second women's T20 here on Sunday.

Smriti Mandhana (23), Richa Ghosh (23) and even Jemimah Rodrigues (13) could not capitalise after making promising starts as Australia kept the proceedings firmly under control with regular breakthroughs.

But Deepti Sharma (31 off 27 balls, 5x4s) fought till the end to push the team’s total as far as she could, with wickets falling steadily from the other end.

Kim Garth (2/27) dealt an early blow to India trapping Shafali Verma (1) leg-before wickets and had further success getting an on-song Rodrigues who got off the blocks quickly with three fours.

Having smashed almost 10 runs per over in the powerplay during the first game, India could only manage a mere 33/2 with Mandhana hitting a few attractive strokes.

The India vice-captain flicked Garth over deep square leg for a six and another hit over the cover fell short of the boundary ropes for a four.

However, Mandhana could not control a short ball from Annabel Sutherland in the eighth over as she pulled one straight to Ellyse Perry at deep midwicket.

India’s misery compounded with skipper Harmanpreet Kaur’s (six off 12 balls) yet another failure with the bat.

With the team in desperate need of revival, Harmanpreet had a perfect opportunity to lift India out of doldrums but the captain perished on what has been her bread and butter shot — the sweep.

Ghosh smacked a massive six off Gardner in the same over but she too could not push on for a big score.

With all eyes fixated on the wicketkeeper-batter for a much-needed push, Ghosh was unable to connect a slower delivery from Georgia Wareham which struck her on the pads in front of the wickets.

Australia’s appeal was declined on the field and even Wareham felt the ball had pitched outside leg, but skipper Alyssa Healy went ahead with a DRS appeal which overturned in favour of the visitors.

Wareham went on to claim Pooja Vastrakar (9) for her second scalp in a fine spell of 4-0-17-2, but this time both the bowler and the skipper were on the same page for a correct DRS call.

Sutherland dismissed Amanjot Kaur (4) for her second wicket, returning 4-0-18-2.