Australia emerged victorious by 5 runs in a nail-biting semi-final encounter against India in the 20-20 World Cup 2023 on Thursday at the Newlands Stadium in Cape Town. Once again in a high-pressure game, the Australian batters stood tall and managed to post a challenging score of 172 runs on the board.
Beth Mooney helped Australia make a stellar start in the first half of the innings. She played an enterprising knock of 54 runs in 37 balls at a strike rate of 145. Her knock was laced with 7 fours and 1 six. India had the chance to get her out a bit earlier but Shafali Verma dropped her catch off Radha Yadav’s bowling in the 10th over. Verma and the whole Indian team were pretty disappointed with that as they knew how costly Mooney’s wicket was.
However, two overs later, Shafali Verma got a chance to redeem herself and this time she made sure she didn’t drop her catch off the bowling of Shikha Pandey. After taking the catch, Verma lost her cool. The Indian opener gave the Australian a fiery send-off. The video of the same has been going viral on the internet.
You can watch it here:
Ooo.. Shafali ???#INDWvsAUSW #T20WomensWorldCup pic.twitter.com/J8OUtiQie0
— Sakshi singh (@Sakshis86972679) February 23, 2023
Nevertheless, Mooney had done her job by then. In pursuit of the target, India needed a good start from Mandhana and Verma. However, both of them failed to live up to the expectations. Shafali Verma got out after scoring 9 runs in just 6 deliveries, including 1 four. India had lost 3 wickets for 28 runs but Harmanpreet Kaur and Jemimah Rodrigues then stitched a 69-run partnership to keep the team in the hunt.
Darcie Brown took the vital wicket of the former in the 11th over and wickets kept falling at regular intervals after that. Harmapreet Kaur’s (52) run-out saw India lost the track and India fell 5 runs short in the end.
