Indian team suffered a heart-breaking narrow 5-run loss to Australia in the first semi-final of the ongoing ICC Women’s T20 World Cup 2023 which was played in Cape Town on February 23, 2023.
Australia won the toss and elected to bat. With the help of Beth Mooney's 54, captain Meg Lanning's 49*, and Ashleigh Gardner's quickfire 18-ball 31, they reached 172/4 in 20 overs. Some shoddy fielding and catching from the Indian team also greatly aided their cause.
In response, India's top three batters, Smriti Mandhana, Shafali Verma, and Yastika Bhatia, all fell for single-digit scores, and the team was only able to recover thanks to Jemimah Rodrigues' counterattacking 43 in 24 balls and her 69-run partnership with Harmanpreet Kaur.
At a crucial moment when India was reducing the gap between runs needed and balls remaining, Harmanpreet continued to play and scored 52 in 34 balls with 6 fours and 1 six before being run out.
After that Richa Ghosh got out for 14 and it was curtains for India’s chase though Deepti Sharma tried her best, India could only manage 167/8 and lost the semi-final by 5 runs.
The turning point for many was run out of Harmanpreet Kaur, who was unlucky to get dismissed in that fashion as her bat got stuck just before the crease as she tried to slide it in, and in meantime, Alyssa Healy whipped off the bails. This dismissal snuffed the air out of India’s chase.
Immediately after Kaur got out, Twitter users were reminded of MS Dhoni’s run out from India’s 2019 World Cup semi-final loss to New Zealand. The veteran was caught short of his crease by a direct hit, by Martin Guptill at a crucial juncture of the match, which sealed the fate in Kiwi’s favor.
Take a look at some reactions by netizens and several IPL franchises, who found similarities in these two dismissals.
