Australia breezed to their fourth Women’s World T20 title, thrashing England by eight wickets in the final at North Sound (Antigua). England faltered with the bat after winning the toss, struggling to 105 all out in 19.4 overs with opener Danielle Wyatt (43) being the top scorer. Pacer Megan Schutt (2/13), leggie Giorgia Wareham (2/11) and all-rounder Ashleigh Gardner (3/22) led Australia’s clinical effort with the ball.
Chasing a comfortable target, Australia raced to victory in 15.1 overs with Gardner and captain Meg Lanning remaining unbeaten on 33 and 28 respectively. Interestingly, England had also mustered 105 against Australia in the final of the 2014 edition and even on that occasion, the team from Down Under cruised to a famous win. With another emphatic win, Australia extended their dominance in the showpiece event of the shortest format, lifting their fourth trophy in tournament’s sixth edition. Australia are also the most successful team in ODI World Cup with six titles.
Brief scores: Australia 106/2 (Gardner 33*, Lanning 28*) beat England 105 (Wyatt 43, Knight 25, Gardner 3-22, Wareham 2-11) by eight wickets.
England halt India's march
India’s dreams of winning a maiden global title was shattered after a questionable omission and an inexplicable batting collapse saw them crash to an eight-wicket defeat against England in the semifinals. India decided to leave their senior most player Mithali Raj, and India lost their last eight wickets for 24 runs to end up scoring just 112 in 19.3 overs. It was a an easy walk in the park for England as seasoned campaigners Amy Jones and Natalie Sciver added 92 runs for the unbroken third-wicket stand to finish the match in only 17.1 overs.
It was yet another story of Indian women not showing enough temperament during big match days, having lost the 50-over World Cup final to England at Lord’s last year and the Asia Cup T20 final to Bangladesh earlier this year. As many as seven players failed to get double-digit scores and the spin attack was unable to adapt to a different surface at the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium after playing all their matches at Providence in Guyana. The decision to drop Mithali, the highest run-getter in shortest format, may haunt the Indian team for the longest time to come as coach Ramesh Powar and captain Harmanpreet Kaur will have a lot of answering to do in the coming days.
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Harmanpreet named captain of T20 World XI
India’s batting star Harmanpreet Kaur was named captain of the ICC Women’s World T20 XI, which also featured opener Smriti Mandhana and leg-spinner Poonam Yadav. Team: Alyssa Healy (Australia), Smriti Mandhana (India), Amy Jones (England, wicketkeeper), Harmanpreet Kaur (India, Captain), Deandra Dottin (Windies), Javeria Khan (Pakistan), Ellyse Perry (Australia), Leigh Kasperek (New Zealand), Anya Shrubsole (England), Kirstie Gordon (England), Poonam Yadav (India), 12th player: Jahanara Alam (Bangladesh).
