Indian women’s cricket team faced Australia in the final of the Commonwealth Games 2022. The Kangaroos won the match by nine runs in a nail-biter to clinch the gold medal. Indian women came close to winning the match but lost the momentum after Harmanpreet Kaur’s wicket.
During the match, while entering the field, Yastika Bhatia got trapped in the advertisement board and fell down. The 21-year-old batter marched onto the field when India required 12 runs off 8 balls. Despite the intensity of the game, the Indian dugout burst out laughing right after she fell. Indian skipper Harmanpreet Kaur, Harleen Deol, and Smriti Mandhana couldn’t really control it as the entire stadium found it funny.
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With the momentum shifting away after Kaur’s wicket, India eventually fell short by 9 runs. After winning the toss and electing to bat first, the Australian brigade lost their first wicket after putting just 9 runs on the board. Beth Mooney and Meg Lanning joined hands to put on a steady partnership. Mooney scored a fine half-century to power Australia to 161 for the loss of 8 wickets at the end of the first innings.
Indian women got off to a shaky start as they lost both the openers within the first three overs. Harmanpreet Kaur and Jemimah Rodrigues steadied the innings and made things easy for India. However, the Indian skipper perished after scoring a fine 65. The Indian team struggled to get things back on track after Kaur perished.
With wickets tumbling and batters failing to take out Australian women, the Indians were restricted to 152. They were bowled out with three balls to spare in the innings. Ashleigh Gardner, the Australian all-rounder said that it was women’s cricket that emerged as the winner. She added that it was fantastic to see a lot of people support the sport.
“You just have to look how many people came out and watched every single game even when England wasn’t playing. It was amazing to see people just supporting women’s cricket. I guess that was the best thing about this whole event was growing the game globally,” Gardner was quoted as saying.
