On International Women’s Day, Australia displayed an all-round performance to beat India by 85 runs to win the 2020 ICC Women’s T20 World Cup at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG).
India Women displayed poor fielding skills and dropped crucial catches of Australia openers, Alyssa Healy and Beth Mooney, who later went on to smash quickfire half-centuries. Healy played an innings of 75 runs off just 39 balls while Mooney remained unbeaten on 78 runs. Australia posted a target of 184 runs in the allotted 20 overs.
During India’s chase, Megan Schutt and Jess Jonassen claimed four and three wickets respectively to bundle out India on just 99.
Speaking to the reporters, after the match, India skipper Harmanpreet Kaur said that her team dropped catches of Healy and Mooney which proved crucial in deciding the feat of the game.
“When you lose half chances and then it’s hard for a bowlers to get that confidence back and then easy for batters because then they get chance and then they are batting freely, they don’t have any pressure but I don’t think we were fielding under any pressure but unfortunately we were not able to create those chances because that was very crucial. They both were in great form and you cannot drop their catches,” said Kaur.
Which loss was more disappointing for India – ODI World Cup 2017 or T20 World 2020?
Kaur also believes that India’s nine-run defeat against England in the final of 2017 Women’s ODI World Cup at Lord’s was more disappointing than this defeat in Women’s T20 World Cup final.
“The 2017 loss was more disappointing because that was so close but today what we were expecting ourselves, we did not play that cricket. But as our team is quite young and we did really well in the league games. In the last T20 World Cup we reached semi-finals and this year we made it to the final. I think if we keep working and improving, then in the future we can win,” Harmanpreet added.
