Commonwealth Games: Disastrous batting decisions in final against Australia reduce Indian golden hopes to silver – Firstcricket News, Firstpost

Birmingham: The Indian women ended up with the silver medal in the Commonwealth Games cricket tournament, going down to Australia by nine runs in the final. This is the second time in a very short span of time, way too short to have been forgotten, when some really bad cricket let India down, and twice now, they have lost to Australia from a position where they really should have won.

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The second one, being the final, naturally hurt more, but as the Indian batters contrived to fall short of a target that looked reachable for most part of the inning, the blame is theirs to own up to, since they batted with immensely poor judgment.

India’s batting, from top down, was all about inexplicable rushes of blood or wrong thought processes. Opener Smriti Mandhana, by far one of the best in the business, somehow contrived to walk across her stumps and lost the leg-stick when no such mad rush was warranted. She was being hindered a little in going through the off-side, but even then, there was no real need to do that, so early on. India were 16 for no loss in less than two overs at the time, with hardly any need for adventures.

Shafali Verma played an airy-fairy shot that went straight up for a simple catch, while Jemimah Rodrigues, looking so good with Harmanpreet Kaur, swung at one rooted in her crease and lost her stumps.

That was not the end of the madness. Pooja Vastrakar carted one straight up in the air to caught, and off the very next ball, the Indian captain, who was absolutely essential till the end, played a nothing version of the ramp shot, and was caught by the wicketkeeper.

The saddest part of this litany of bad calls was that not one was needed. India were not struggling for runs at any stage and in fact Harmanpreet and Rodrigues had pushed the Aussies into a corner. A 96-run third-wicket partnership off a shade less than 12 overs did not merit Rodrigues’ shot, nor Harmanpreet’s at 121/4 at 15.4 overs.

Once a team plays such absolutely unnecessary cricket against a side like Australia, it will lose. As simple as that. Harmanpreet was looking absolutely murderous, her 65 off 43 deliveries with seven boundaries and two sixes looking so ominous, till the time she played that scoop, which is not her shot. It was evident from the time India went in to field that they were up for the fight.

This was possibly India’s best fielding performance, not just in the Commonwealth Games but for quite a while. Radha Yadav, with her instinctive run-out of Meg Lanning off her own bowling, followed by a splendid catch to dismiss Tahlia McGrath off Deepti Sharma was further complimented by the catch that Sharma herself took to get rid of top-scorer Beth Mooney said in no uncertain terms that India were keen and competitive.

Mandhana then essayed a direct throw to run Jess Jonassen as the Australian batting fumbled a bit. The bowling was good without being outstanding, which is something India will have to address in a rush if they need to make that last step in big finals.

Even with all the fine fielding and the enthusiasm, the gaps were there to be found and the Australians, professional to the core, ensured that all the gaps were exploited to maximum effort. Compare this with the Australian line and length, as they got several bowled and LBW wickets. A telling difference.

It is a good thing to take the pace off when the pitch is of that nature. Also, any kind of slower deliveries make it absolutely imperative that the line and critically the length is perfect, or as near as possible.

Unfortunately for India, the short deliveries were way too many from all the bowlers, and the horizontal-bat shots were too many to count. That made a massive difference in the final score that Australia got, as well as how India then batted.

Sadly, the enthusiasm did not always translate into intelligence while batting up the order. That, in the sum of all things, was the difference between champions and second-best.

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