With their four-match unbeaten streak brought to a halt, India will be keen to bounce back and take a step towards securing a semifinal spot when they take on the mighty Australia at Bristol on Wednesday, reported PTI.
India were on a rampaging run beating England, West Indies, Pakistan and Sri Lanka before South Africa disturbed their momentum with a massive 115-run win. Similarly Australia’s four-match unbeaten run was stopped by England in the previous game and they would also look to get back to winning ways.
Neither of the teams have yet qualified for the semi-finals but Australia are in a better position in the table by virtue of a strong net run-rate. The Aussies had lost to England by just three runs at Bristol in a humdinger against their old foes.
In the previous game against South Africa, India had a great chance of sealing a semi-final berth, but now have their task cut out in the remaining round-robin games – they play New Zealand after facing the defending champions.
The last match witnessed an abject batting surrender by India as they got out for a meagre 158 while chasing 274.
The game were pretty much done and dusted when India collapsed to 56 for six in the 17th over before Deepti Sharma saved the team the blushes of getting bowled out for under 100 by scoring a battling 60 off 111 balls with the help of former skipper Jhulan Goswami, who remained unbeaten on 43.
India’s record against Australia far from impressive with just eight wins in 41 matches. However, skipper Mithali Raj’s 89 set up a five-wicket win the last time the teams met. They would expect the likes of in-form Smriti Mandhana, Punam Raut and Harmanpreet Kaur, besides Deepti and Mithali to fire in unison against the Australians.
Shikha Pandey, who came back into the side against South Africa and took three wickets for 40 runs, said her team was aware of the precarious position they were in. “We need to pull ourselves back from the defeat. The best cricket that we can play is there, so hopefully it will come against Australia,” Pandey said.
“We need to play more attacking cricket and need to plan better. Even before the World Cup started, we said that we were going to do our best and not have to depend on other teams,” she added.
Australia skipper Meg Lanning said they would have to bounce back quickly and put on a strong performance.
“Against England was not our best performance with the ball but hopefully we can learn from that pretty quickly and come back for India,” Lanning said.
Squads:
India: Mithali Raj (c), Ekta Bisht, Rajeshwari Gayakwad, Jhulan Goswami, Mansi Joshi, Harmanpreet Kaur, Veda Krishnamurthy, Smrti Mandhana, Mona Meshram, Shikha Pandey, Poonam Yadav, Nuzhat Parween, Punam Raut, Deepti Sharma, Sushma Verma (wk), Smriti Mandhana.
Australia: Meg Lanning (c), Sarah Aley, Kristen Beams, Alex Blackwell, Nicole Bolton, Ashleigh Gardner, Rachael Haynes, Alyssa Healy (wk), Jess Jonassen, Beth Mooney, Ellyse Perry, Megan Schutt, Belinda Vakarewa, Elyse Villani, Amanda Jade-Wellington.
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