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That will be all then from this contest. The final T20I will take place at the same venue and at the same time on Tuesday, January 9. Do join us for our coverage of the same right here on Sportskeeda while keeping yourselves updated with all the other cricketing news and action from around the world on this platform. For the moment, this is the duo of Pradeep Somashekar and Tasmai Krishnan taking your leave. Thank you so much for joining us today. Have a great week ahead. Good night and take care!
India fought hard and stretched this as much as they could. But Australia were never going to fall short of what was an under-par target. The series has been leveled and it sets things up for a cracking decider on Tuesday at this very venue. The Women in Blue will take the positives with them but surely, look at executing better too as they seek a famous series win.
Kim Garth is the Player of the Match. Here's what she has to say: Absolutely delighted. I'm not sure I actually deserve this. Annabel Sutherland and Georgia Wareham bowled beautifully to get us into a good position. Every time you play for Australia it's a real pleasure. Bowler-friendly conditions tonight so I wanted to push the ball up and let the ball do the talking. Just tried to keep the stumps in play, be nice and attacking and set attacking fields. Luckily for me it paid off. (Any different plans prior to this series?) I don't think so. It's much of the same. It's not always a nice to place to bowl, India, with flat wickets and short boundaries. Just trying to make the most of the opportunities I get in the team.
Alyssa Healy (Australia captain): We promised to execute as well as we'd like and we're happy to get the win and take it to the decider in a couple of days' time. The average score here is like 145-150. If we could keep them to 140 we knew we could do it comfortably. I thought our bowlers did a spectacular job upfront to get us to a good position. I got them right tonight (on the reviews). I've seen Kim Garth take a five-fer here in the WPL and she loves these conditions. We made that change based on gut feel and it paid off. We just need to be more clinical. We speak a lot about planning pre-game but when we come out here we need to execute. The bowlers were clinical tonight. The batters still have a few things to work out but besides that it was a good all-round performance.
Harmanpreet Kaur (India Women captain): The score that we got wasn't enough at all, still our bowlers did well to take it till the 19th over and we were brilliant in the first game, but we didn't really put up a good show here on the field as well, plenty of areas to improve here. In those middle overs, we thought 150 was good, but we kept losing wickets, few overs went really well for Australia. When you bat first, we need to see what we need to do in the next game. We were taking wickets throughout in the run chase, may be the 19th over if had gone good, we could've taken till the last ball, we need to come back stronger, and we have room for improvement. We have seen these type of games lot of times, we have plenty of new faces and the young side is shaping up nicely.
Ellyse Perry: Was brilliant get to the win on board. I was just doing my job and a good come back from us that. India played well very well the other night. But we had to do well with the ball today, and we backed ourselves. Phoebe was brilliant in the end. We went back and talked about things that we needed to correct, we were really honest. Kim Garth set the tone for us at the start. The way she bowled and she didn't allow a lot for the batters to do at the start and we were able to keep a check on the run flow throughout those 20 overs. We did well to strike in the powerplay. It's not easy at all to bat when you come in on that track. You need to spend time in the middle and get a score of around 150-160 and that's probably just par I feel. It's definitely a special privilege. It kind of crept up on me in the last couple of days. It's really made me reminisce. I'm happy that I'm playing around the world.
What took off as a very lackluster beginning from an opening pair, who we all wish finds some consistency with their run scoring in, Shefali Verma and Smriti Mandhana
But there definitely was a reason as to why there was a restriction in the run flow and a large chunk of the credit about it, had to go to the phenomenal new ball spell from Kim Garth, who scalped 2 wickets with an economy a shade under 7 from her 4 overs.
Richa Ghosh showed glimpses of some terrific power-play, but was dismissed, courtesy the best bowler of the day from the Aussie side, Georgia Wareham, who kept the batters guessing all through the innings with some fabulous changes in pace and lengths at the right times
Deepti Sharma was the only ray of hope for India from this outcome in all 3 departments, including ground fielding, where she was once again brilliant. Her bowling figures of 2/22 in her 4 and her batting score of 30(27), being the highest tallier in both the departments, just makes her the complete package India should try and utilize more and more, especially with the bat and the new ball.
Alyssa Healy and Beth Mooney got the Aussies off to a filer and after which, there were some exemplary strokes on display from all the middle order batters, especially Ellyse Perry, who only gets better and better, whether game number 1 or 300- the intensity out there remains the same!
Phoebe Litchfield, played a nice match-winning cameo towards the end, with some shots all around the park as well.
Overall, it was an exceptional game of cricket, with both sides having their ups and downs, but the better side today took home the label of victory!
19
overs
133/4score
4
2
4
0
1
6
runs
Ellyse Perry*
34(21)
Phoebe Litchfield
18(12)
Shreyanka Patil
1/40
18.6 Shreyanka Patil to Ellyse Perry, SIX! GAME, SET AND MATCH! Australia romp home to victory with an over to go, what a stunning come back to square the series here. Length delivery on the off-stump, Perry goes for the glory shot, sits on one knee and clubbed it all the way over deep mid-wicket ropes to finish things in style.
18.5 Shreyanka Patil to Phoebe Litchfield, length delivery outside the off-stump, Litchfield down the track again, smacked it through covers for one.
18.4 Shreyanka Patil to Phoebe Litchfield, skips down the track for the length delivery, Litchfield looks to drive but chopped it into the off-side for a dot.
18.3 Shreyanka Patil to Phoebe Litchfield, FOUR MORE! Not a great over this from Patil, she has completely lost it here. Another full toss outside the off-stump, Litchfield nails the reverse sweep over the backward point region, runs away for another boundary.
18.2 Shreyanka Patil to Phoebe Litchfield, OH! Good length outside the off-stump, Litchfield walks across off-stump again, ramps it over the keeper's head, picks up a couple this time.
18.1 Shreyanka Patil to Phoebe Litchfield, FOUR! Dishes out a full toss into the batter, Litchfield walks across off-stump and just helps it down to fine-leg with a ramp shot, runs away to fine-leg ropes. Just the kind of start to the over that Australia needed.
Shreyanka Patil, comes into the attack to complete her spell
However attacking it sounds...having another fielder inside the circle will be a good move, as even giving 5 singles an over can cost them the game. If I am Harmanpreet Kaur, I would have square leg inside, and position deep midwicket a bit finer and ask the bowlers, to bowl wide outside the off stump and at a swift pace to try and make them go over the leg side, invariably leading to leading edge onto point or covers or even the single towards the sweepers fielder.
18
overs
116/4score
1
0
0
1
0
2
runs
Ellyse Perry*
28(20)
Phoebe Litchfield
7(7)
Pooja Vastrakar
1/8
17.6 Pooja Vastrakar to Ellyse Perry, OH! What a stop that from Smriti, comes diving around and puts her body behind it to stop it. Perry crashes the length delivery through covers and she gets just a couple.
17.5 Pooja Vastrakar to Ellyse Perry, OH! Back of a length, angled into the batter. Perry takes a shimmy down the track to swipe, but misses, pings her on the body.
17.4 Pooja Vastrakar to Phoebe Litchfield, back of a length on the middle and off. Litchfield tucked it past the square-leg region for an easy single.
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Ellyse Perry
*
Shreyanka Patil
Video
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