“Ridiculous fielding & bowling”- Twitter fans slam India for sloppy fielding as Beth Mooney, Meg Lanning take Australia to challenging total
The Newlands stadium did not provide much help for the Indian spinners as Beth Mooney, Meg Lanning, and Ashleigh Gardner feasted on the bowlers.
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IND-W vs AUS-W semi-final
India may see another upset in a World Cup because they know they have to chase a challenging target of 173 against the defending champions Australia in the all-important semifinal on Thursday (February 23). The Newlands stadium did not provide much help for the Indian spinners as Beth Mooney, Meg Lanning, and Ashleigh Gardner feasted on the bowlers.
Aussie skipper Meg Lanning won the toss and elected to bat first. The dangerous openers, Alyssa Healy and Beth Mooney stitched a 54 runs stand to give a fiery start to their team. Radha Yadav got rid of Healy in the eighth over and a couple of overs later, Shikha Pandey sent Mooney into packing.
While Healy rather rotated the strike, scoring 25 runs off 26 balls, it was Mooney again who was unstoppable. She completed her half-century, scoring 54 runs from 37 balls, including seven boundaries and a maximum at an impressive strike rate of 145.95. At one point, she was even dropped.
Only for a while, India enjoyed a shift in momentum. But owing to their poor fielding, Lanning was dropped when she arrived at the crease and soon, the Indian women had to pay the price.
The Aussie skipper would then unleash an attack and no bowlers could stop her. She remained unbeaten on 49 runs from 35 balls, smashing four boundaries and two sixes at a brilliant strike rate of 144.12.
Along with Lanning, Gardner also made a mockery of the poor bowling. At a massive strike rate of 172.22, she played 18 balls to quickly add 31 runs with the help of five boundaries, before Deepti Sharma got rid of her in the 18th over. Australia had scored 141/3 at that time but as Lanning was still at the crease, the Indian bowlers couldn’t stop the flow of runs. Australia reached 172/4 in their allotted 20 overs.
Related: Can Harmanpreet Kaur and co. avenge last T20 World Cup final defeat against mighty Australia?
Check how Twitter reacted to Beth Mooney and Meg Lanning’s powerful knocks and India’s poor fielding
India have started their batting and already lost three wickets. The openers, Shafali Verma and Smriti Mandhana became the victims of Megan Schutt and Ashleigh Gardner respectively. India have so far scored 65/3 in seven overs at the time of writing this article. Jemimah Rodrigues (23*) and captain Harmanpreet Kaur (26*) are at the cease, slowly steering the score to the target.
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Gouri Das
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