Indian women go down fighting, concede series
Auckland, Feb. 8: A shoddy batting performance by the middle- order saw Indian women lose a nailbiting second T20 International against New Zealand by four wickets and concede the threematch series here on Friday.
The Indian women had earlier lost the first Twenty20 International by 23 runs in Wellington. Needing a win to keep the series alive, Indian women posted a modest 135 for 6 despite being 72 for 2 after the first 10 overs. Chasing a modest target, New Zealand made heavy weather of the chase before scampering home off the last ball of the match losing only six wickets. “I think we should give credit to our bowlers, it wasn’t a good total but still they fought for us.
We were 20 runs short, They played better cricket than us. We just need to learn from our mistakes and play better,” India skipper Harmanpreet Kaur said after the match.
Jemimah Rodrigues slammed a 53- ball 72 that included six boundaries and one six but India scored only 63 runs in the back 10 to end up 20 runs short, which became their undoing. The White Ferns lost two quick wickets — opener Sophie Devine ( 19) and Caitlin Gurrey ( 4) by the seventh over with the scoreboard reading 40.
But then Suzie Bates ( 62) and Amy Satterthwaite ( 23) joined hands and the duo stitched 61 runs for the third wicket to get New Zealand women back into the track. Left- arm orthodox bowler Radha Yadav ( 2/ 23) and medium pacer Arundhati Reddy ( 2/ 22) bowled well in the middle overs to take the match down to the wire.
Reddy, in fact, brought India women back into the match with twin blows in the 18th over — first dismissing a set Bates and then accounting for Anna Peterson for a first ball duck to bring India back into the contest. New Zealand needed nine runs off the last over and Katey Martin smacked Mansi Joshi for a boundary off the first ball to bring down the equation to five off five balls.
Joshi, however, got her revenge by getting through the defence of Martin in the next ball. But it was not to be India’s day as some sloppy fielding and sensible batting by Hannah Rowe and Leigh Kasperek took New Zealand home.
Brief scores: India 135/ 6 in 20 overs ( Rodrigues 72, Mair 2/ 17) lost to New Zealand 136/ 6 in 20 overs ( Bates 62).
We probably should have done that a lot easier than what we did. But I am happy. Feels like it's been a while since we won a series. — AMY SATHERWAITE, New Zealand captain