The first semifinal of the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup 2023 was played in Cape Town between India and Australia on February 23, 2023. Australia was looking to defend its title and India trying to break past their inability to beat Australia in recent times.
Meg Lanning won the toss and chose to bat first, Jess Jonassen and Alyssa Healy came in for Alanna King and Annabel Sutherland. India went in with Sneh Rana for Pooja Vastrakar, who was ruled out of the remainder of the tournament due to respiratory illness and Radha Yadav came in for Rajeshwari Gayakwad.
Australia started decently losing Alyssa Healy for 25 with score of 53 in the 8th over. Then Beth Mooney (54) went for the score of 88 in the 12th over. After that, it was carnage as Meg Lanning made 49* in 34 balls with 4 fours and 2 sixes, while Ashleigh Gardner made 31 in 18 balls with 5 fours as Australia made merry of some poor fielding and catching by Indians and posted 172/4.
Shikha Pandey took 2/32 in 4 overs, while Deepti Sharma and Radha Yadav picked one wicket each as well.
In reply, India lost their top three for single-digit scores with Shafali making 9, Smriti Mandhana falling for 2 and Yastika Bhatia getting run out for 4 runs. Jemimah Rodrigues (43 in 24 balls) added 69 runs with Harmanpreet Kaur before she fell to Darcie Brown.
Harmanpreet continued on and score 52 in 34 balls with 6 fours and 1 six and was run out at a crucial juncture when India was closing the gap between runs needed and balls remaining. Richa Ghosh followed soon at 14 runs.
India needed 20 runs in the last 2 overs and Australian bowlers tightened the screws. Though Deepti Sharma tried to do her best, India could only make 167/8 and lost the first semi-final to Australia by 5 runs.
Darcie Brown took 2/18 and Ashleigh Gardner picked 2/37 and she was named the Player of the Match as well.
The cricket fraternity reacted to this heartbreaking loss of the Indian women’s team as they failed once again in a knockout game of the ICC tournament.
Here are the tweets:
