Unbeaten throughout the tournament, India coped a crushing 85-run defeat against Australia in the final of the ICC Women's T20 World Cup at MCG on Sunday (March 8).
WATCH- Shafali Verma breaks down after defeat; fans console her
The Women in Blue had no answer to the batting brilliance of Alyssa Healy (75 off 39 balls) and Beth Mooney (78* off 54 balls) before getting bowled out to 99 all-out at the hands of seamer Megan Schutt (4/18) and spinner Jess Jonassen (3/20).
Shafali Verma, who had a wonderful campaign with the bat, dropped Healy on 9 in the first over and made only 2 runs in the chase.
After the match, skipper Harmanpreet Kaur accepted that Shafali struggled to bounce back after dropping Healy but refused to blame the teenager for defeat in the summit clash.
“She’s only 16, she’s playing her first World Cup. She did really, really well and performed for us,” Kaur told reporters. “For a 16-year-old kid, it’s difficult to keep thinking positively and stay in the game.
“It’s a learning lesson for her but it could happen to anyone. We can’t blame her because there were others also in her position.
“We gave chances to batters in great form and it’s difficult for bowlers to come back when that happens.
“We weren’t feeling under pressure but unfortunately we were unable to create those chances.
“It’s a lesson for all of us, we have to be at 100 per cent when we’re fielding because that’s the most important part of cricket.”
It was India’s second defeat in the final of ICC event in the last three years. The Women in Blue went down by 9 runs in the ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup 2017 final against England and Harmanpreet still finds that loss hard to swallow.
“I guess 2017 was more disappointing, because that was so close,” she added. “We didn’t play the cricket we expected of ourselves this time.
“As our team is quite young, we did really well in the league games. We reached the semis and the Final this year. If we keep working and improving, maybe in the future we can win.
“There was still excitement. It was a great day, we definitely enjoyed it. Winning and losing is part of the game, one team has to do both. At the end of the day, it was a great moment for us.
“We didn’t field well, we need to learn from today’s performance. When you are playing a great level of cricket, you cannot drop the chances and we were not up to the mark.
“We will take this seriously and when we come to play next time, we will be one of the best fielding sides.”
(With IANS puts)
