As the long home season comes to an end, India women want to win their first T20I series against Australia

The Indian women’s cricket team will have one more chance to win a T20I series against Australia at home on Tuesday when they play in the series finale. It has been a lengthy and uneven home season. Harmanpreet Kaur’s India have a chance to defeat the defending world champions Australia in their backyard and start the 2024 T20I World Cup year in style with a 1-1 draw in the three-match series.

In their five series bilateral T20I history, India has only managed one series victory versus Australia’s four. Their greatest success as a team is their victory in an away game in 2015–16. But after winning historic one-off Test matches against England and Australia earlier in the season, India would want to make the most of this last chance.

In the first match, India dominated Australia by a record nine wickets, but their batsmen performed horribly in the second. On Sunday, a challenging surface at DY Patil Stadium prevented hitters from having a good game. While there was a lot of dew in the early part of the match, which helped India’s batting attack, it was hard to restrict the Australian hitters in the second half of the match.

To their credit, however, the Indian bowlers played some tight lines and accurate fielding to try to extend the game as far as they could. But the home team’s fielding has only been marginally effective. The fact that Kaur is still struggling at the bat will continue to be a major worry for the hosts, who lost the second game by six wickets.

In the ten games played thus far in various forms, the Indian skipper has failed to reach the fifty mark. After 11 innings, including the first T20I in which her services were not needed, she has seven single-digit scores to her credit. “Not every player can have a fantastic day every day, but everyone may suddenly have a really amazing day. When asked whether the team was concerned about Kaur’s form, all-rounder Deepti Sharma said, “It is not the case that we are (right away) aiming for big shots but we are trying to play (as per the) merit of the ball,” to the media after the game.

In the second game, Deepti played a lone fight of sorts, hitting a feisty 27-ball 31 to give the Indian innings some late momentum. She also put in a strong effort with the ball, taking the first two of the four Australian wickets to fall. The bowlers have dominated play in the first two Twenty20 Internationals because the pitches haven’t let hitters get away with murder in the opening innings.

Australia’s player of the match on Sunday, Kim Garth, said, “It has been a really good contest between bat and ball; there is something in it for both the batters and the bowlers.” It has been quite satisfying that there has been some action for the bowlers, especially with the new ball, she said. “Especially, coming from the wicket that we played on the Test match, (it) was a lot more challenging for the batters.”

Deepti too said it was difficult to bat on the second game’s pitch. “…that was a challenging pitch to bat on. The ball was slowing down (off the surface) and spinning at the same time. When asked what went wrong for India, she said, “I think we were about 15 runs short.”

India’s squads are as follows: Amanjot Kaur, Shreyanka Patil, Mannat Kashyap, Saika Ishaque, Renuka Singh Thakur, Titas Sadhu, Pooja Vastrakar, Kanika Ahuja, Minnu Mani, Jemimah Rodrigues, Shafali Verma, Deepti Sharma, Yastika Bhatia (wk), Richa Ghosh (wk), Renuka Singh Thakur, Renuka Singh Thakur, Renuka Singh Thakur, and Saika Ishaque.

Australia: Jess Jonassen, Alana King, Phoebe Litchfield, Tahlia McGrath (vc), Beth Mooney (wk), Ellyse Perry, Megan Schutt, Annabel Sutherland, Georgia Wareham; Darcie Brown, Heather Graham, Ashleigh Gardner, Kim Garth, Grace Harris, Alyssa Healy (c&wk).