TALKING POINTS
Follow UsThe second T20I between India and Australia women was a game of small contributions. Ellyse Perry, playing her 300th international game, was the top scorer in the game with her unbeaten 34 not out. There was only one 50-run stand - Alyssa Healy and Beth Mooney added 51 for the opening wicket. Three Australian seamers picked two wickets each - Kim Garth, Annabel Sutherland and Georgia Wareham snaffled 6/62 in 12 overs between them.
For India, Deepti Sharma was the only star. The top-scorer with the bat scoring 30 runs, she also picked two wickets with the ball while conceding only three runs in her two overs. Her first spell brought India into the game from a near hopeless situation.
However, it will be fair to assess that India lost the game with the bat. Asked to bat first, they scored only 130 runs in a stop-start innings. Every time they seemed to forge a big partnership, they lost a wicket. It starkly contrasted the batting show put in the first T20I, where India clinched a 9-wicket victory.
India have defeated Australia in back-to-back WT20Is only once - back in 2016. They missed out on an opportunity to replicate that and also clinch the T20I series.
Low rewards on attacking strokes
India scored 104/4 on the 78 deliveries they played an attacking stroke. In response, Australia churned out a lot more value on their attacking shots - 115/3 in 69 deliveries. Both team played exactly the same proportion of dot balls - 50.8%.
Smriti Mandhana and Harmanpreet Kaur, two of India’s most senior batters, were out attacking the ball. Mandhana found the only fielder in the deep while playing a well-timed pull stroke. Harman, right after the drinks break, wanted to shift the pressure on the bowler. She went for her release stroke but top-edged the sweep stroke to the deep square-leg fielder.
Inconsistent Shafali
Shafali Verma’s last eight WT20Is now read 1, 64 not out, 6, 0, 52, 9, 17 and 67. In WT20Is since 2023, she averages only 18.7 while batting first. Two of her 50s in the last eight outings came while chasing.
There is a clear pattern with Shafali. She struggles while batting first and is too inconsistent overall. In this clash, she looked all at sea on the wicket ball. Kim Garth followed the basics, swinging the ball around the fourth stump line. Shafali had no feet movement as she seemed clueless about which way the ball would move and ended up late on the ball.
Harman’s travails vs spin
Harmanpreet Kaur averages only 15.7 at a strike rate of 97.9 in her last four Wt20I innings at home. She has a problem against spin. Since 2023 at home, the right-hander has scored only 10 runs against spin from 26 balls for two dismissals. For a number four batter, she is more likely to start against spin than pace which necessitates an improvement against spin.
In this clash, she was 6 off 11 balls which led to her dismissal. With the upcoming T20 World Cup in Bangladesh, it is a big red flag attached with India's number four.
