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Team India suffered a difficult loss to Australia in the 2024 Women's T20 World Cup on Sunday, October 13. After falling short by nine runs at the Sharjah Cricket Stadium, the Women in Blue are on the brink of elimination from the competition.
India have been hampered by major tactical errors and selection mistakes throughout the last few years. With the pressure on them to not only win but also win big, they were expected to come into the game well prepared.
However, Harmanpreet Kaur and Co. had a disastrous outing on many fronts. While their fielding was once again sub-par, they made a series of obvious blunders to essentially seal their exit from the tournament.
On that note, here are three glaring mistakes made by India in their 2024 Women's T20 World Cup defeat to Australia.
#3 India got their batting order all wrong, once again
India needed to not only chase Australia's total down, but also do it in good time. Strangely, they employed a batting order that was entirely counterproductive to that intention.
Harmanpreet Kaur, who was earmarked as the team's No. 3 ahead of the 2024 Women's T20 World Cup, moved back down to No. 4 for this contest. Instead of giving her the freedom to get off to a quick start in the powerplay, India exposed her to starting against spin in the middle overs. The skipper took ages to get going, putting immense pressure on the side.
Meanwhile, Deepti Sharma was inexplicably sent in ahead of Richa Ghosh, who is clearly a more dynamic batter. By the time the latter came to the crease, Australia were well in the ascendancy. Deepti, meanwhile, meandered along at a strike rate of well under 120.
#2 Harmanpreet Kaur's reliance on the pacers was bizarre
India finally moved to Sharjah from Dubai, and the shift was expected to bring their spinners into play. However, captain Harmanpreet Kaur continued to feed pace to the Aussie batters, who were more than happy to face that style of bowling.
Asha Sobhana's loss to an ankle injury was a major factor behind that, but her replacement Radha Yadav bowled just two overs. Even those two overs seemed like an afterthought. And instead of bowling part-time overs from Shafali Verma and herself, Harmanpreet got 10 overs from her three pacers.
With conditions clearly aiding turn and the ball gripping on the wicket at times, India should've been bolder with their usage of the spinners. Even if Harmanpreet wanted to stick to the specialists, Radha should've bowled out.
#1 The last over was a comedy of errors
India needed 14 runs off the last over bowled by Annabel Sutherland, and they completely lost their wits.
Harmanpreet Kaur took a single off the first ball when it would've been ideal for her to farm the strike. Immediately after that, Pooja Vastrakar missed a full-toss from Sutherland to be castled.
New batter Arundhati Reddy was bizarrely reluctant to run immediately after mistiming the ball into the off-side, resulting in her being caught short at the non-striker's end. Harmanpreet then decided to run another single, handing Shreyanka Patil the strike instead of trying to finish the job herself.
Shreyanka then didn't have the awareness to get Harmanpreet back on strike after Sutherland bowled a wide. And to make matters worse, the young all-rounder was caught napping by Beth Mooney, who took the bails off to effectively seal the contest for Australia.
India lost the plot in the last over, with all the players showing absolutely no game awareness. While that alone cannot be pinpointed as the reason behind the loss, it certainly didn't help matters.
