Harmanpreet Kaur's India yet again perished at the bigger stage as they succumbed to Australia by five runs in the Women's T20 World Cup semifinals on Thursday (February 23). India's defeat paved the way for the defending champions Australia to storm into the Women's T20 World Cup final for the seventh successive time.
While chasing Australia's 173-run target, India got off to a shoddy start as they were wobbling at 28/3. Then skipper Harmanpreet Kaur (52 off 34) paired up with Jemimah Rodrigues (43 off 24) to stitch together a 69-run stand to bring India in the game. But India failed to continue the momentum as Rodrigues first returned to the hut and then in a bizarre run out Harmanpreet was sent to the pavilion to leave India reeling again. India needed a very gettable 39 off last 30 balls with five wickets in hand but as it has been the case in the past, the team came up short to finish at 167/8.
Harmanpreet rued India's defeat and said that losing the match after getting the momentum back was unexpected.
“Can't be unluckier than this, to get that momentum back when me and Jemi were batting. And to lose after that, we didn't expect this today. The way I got runout, can't be unluckier than that. Putting in the effort was more important. We discussed about fighting till the last ball. The result didn't go our way, but I am happy with the way we played in this tournament. We know we have a good batting line up even if we lose early wickets. Need to give credit to Jemi for the way she batted today. She got us the momentum we were looking for. Happy to see such performances. Happy to see them play their natural game. We even though we didn't play to our strengths, we reached the semis. We gave those easy catches away. Got to take those when you want to win. We misfielded. We can only learn from these lessons and not repeat the mistakes,” Harmanpreet said after losing the match.
India had lost to five-time champions Australia in the previous World Cup final and more recently in the CWG final last year. Another loss in a knock out game extended India's long wait for a world title.
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