NAVI MUMBAI, Jan 5: Titas Sadhu’s career-best 4/17, Deepti Sharma’s 2/24 and Shreyanka Patil 2/19 helped India Women bundle Australia out for a mere 141 in their opening game of the three-match T20I series here on Friday.
While Sadhu rocked Australia Women with a three-wicket opening burst, Phoebe Litchfield (49) and Ellyse Perry (37) led the fightback for the visitors with a 79-run stand for the fifth wicket.
However, Australia, who lost wickets in clusters on either side of the fifth wicket stand, were bowled out in 19.2 overs.
Titas returned 3-0-8-3 in her first spell in the powerplay, accounting for Beth Mooney (17), Tahlia McGrath (0) and Ashleigh Gardner (0). The 19-year-old right-arm pacer Sadhu then returned for her final over — 18th of the innings — and found further success dismissing Annabel Sutherland (12) for her fourth scalp of the night.
Having topped the batting chart in the ODIs, the left-handed Litchfield carried her form into the shortest format but fell short of a fifty. She smoked three sixes and four fours to make 49 from 32 balls.
While Litchfield provided the fireworks, the seasoned Perry played second fiddle to perfection. Perry struck two fours and as many sixes to make 37 off 30 balls and was one of the two dismissals for Deepti, who showed great control.
To their credit, India showed tremendous application and improvement in their fielding to stop plenty of runs by putting their bodies on the line. But there was a dropped catch of Litchfield when she was on 27.
It came in the 12th over when Litchfield got a leading edge while attempting a reverse sweep off Deepti, which should have been a simple catch. But an embarrassing confusion between two fielders — Renuka Singh Thakur and Jemimah Rodrigues — saw the ball dropping between them when either of them could have taken a simple grab.
Litchfield eventually fell in the 15th over off Amanjot Kaur (1/23), caught by skipper Harmanpreet Kaur, who took four catches in all.
Sadhu provided India with the first breakthrough in the fourth over when she had Mooney caught by Harmanpreet at mid-on right after beating the inside edge of the left-hander. Renuka then got rid of Alyssa Healy (8) in a similar dismissal with Harmanpreet taking a comfortable catch at mid-off.
Sadhu troubled McGrath as an outside edge fell short of Deepti at the first slip, but a thick outside edge carried all the way down to the deep third, where Pooja Vastrakar took a fine catch. Sadhu rocked Australia again when she had Gardner (0) hitting one back at her meekly for a return catch, reducing the visitors to 33/4 after the powerplay. The 10th over of the innings was the costliest with both Litchfield and Perry smacking a six each off Vastrakar to collect 19 runs. (PTI)
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