The reigning champions Australia were brought down to earth in Mullanpur as the Women In Blue turned the tables on them by levelling the series at 1-1. Australia crashed to a crushing 102-run defeat at the hands of India as it was their biggest defeat in terms of runs against India as Australia lost to India for the first time in 8 games and first since Cricket World Cup 2022. Australia’s problems were gaping and was exposed yesterday. We will ascertain three reasons why they lost to India.
Losing both openers and scoring 25 runs in first powerplay pegged Australia back
Notwithstanding the fightback by Australian bowlers to keep India down to 292, it was still a challenging score to get and if successful would have been the highest score chased down by Australia against India. Chasing 293 for the win, Australia needed a solid foundation at the top of the order. But they didn’t get that as they made changes to the playing XI as Phoebe Litchfield was rested and Georgia Voll came in place of her.
Voll fell early for a duck while Healy made 9 off 19 balls as Renuka Singh Thakur and Kranti Goud accounted for the wickets. Not only did Australia lose two early wickets inside 5 overs, but India kept things tight and tightened the screws in the powerplay. They conceded only 25 runs for the loss of 2 wickets which meant the chasing 293 became tougher as the required rate climbed high. Australia could never recover from that position and although the other batters in Perry and Sutherland got 40s it was too much of a task to get to 293.
Australia are in experimentation mode in this series, so they will not sweat about this loss much. But the area to work on will be to get a solid foundation in the chase inside the powerplay and lay the platform for other batters to cash in later on. Here, the innings went into rebuilding mode. Australia have tremendous depth in batting and that is something which will be useful for them if the openers give them a solid start or a flying start for that matter. This is an area they will fine tune it ahead of the big World Cup.
Georgia Wareham & Alana King going for runs and underutilised created headache for AustraliaÂ
One of the key areas that did not go well for Australia with the ball was the spinners’ performance. While Ashleigh Gardner had a great outing bowling her full quota and picking up two wickets. The other two spinners were underutilised and went for runs in the number of overs they bowled. Georgia Wareham bowled only 4 overs and gave away 41 runs as Smriti Mandhana climbed onto her. Alana King was introduced later and bowled only 4 overs for 26 runs. Both failed to take a wicket.
Wareham and King are the two spin bowling options for Australia apart from Gardner and the form of both of them is a bit of a worry ahead of the third match and World Cup. King bowled better in the first game but Australia are using 8 bowlers and so these shortcomings are not being exposed totally. But Wareham and King not doing well meant Healy had to use the other bowlers more frequently and since Australia have a plethora of options to choose from, this becomes a problem of plenty. Many bowlers get underbowled but the performance of Wareham and King in this match raised eyebrows.
Both these players are class players and would want to bounce back with the series on the line in the decider. Both Wareham and King needs to be bowled at the right time and both need to trust the process in order to do well for themselves and Australia. They can do it, it is just about peaking at the right time for them and they will bounce back and roar like Aussies do.
Australian batting failed as a unit under pressure to suffer a heavy defeat
After successfully chasing 282 for the win in the first ODI, the Australian batting would have been confident to chase 293 down as well even though this would have been the highest chase against India. But India were a determined unit and would not let go of this match easily. They struck twice to remove Georgia Voll and Alyssa Healy for single digit scores. There were mini recoveries from Australia as Ellyse Perry showed resistance for her 44 while Annabel Sutherland scored 45.
There were players who got to double figures but no one went on with the big knock that Smriti Mandhana did for India. That was the biggest difference as Australia succumbed under scoreboard pressure as the whole batting line-up caved in to be bowled out for 190 in 40.5 overs. Australia have tremendous depth in batting and even that could not stop them from getting bowled out cheaply and suffering a heavy defeat. India were over the moon as their new combination and bowlers came to the party in this match.
Australia would like to make sure that going forward, if they are chasing a big score, they do not cave in under pressure and make a match out of it by giving their best shot since they have depth in their batting and quality batters down the order. The Australians would like to treat it as one bad day in the office but also like great teams do find out and look at the areas where they need to work upon and come back stronger in the decider in Delhi on Saturday.
What Lies Ahead
So, the Women in Blue have bounced back to level the series at 1-1 after two games. The stage is set for the decider as the bandwagon moves from New Chandigarh to New Delhi at the Arun Jaitley Stadium where India will lock horns with Australia on 20th September 2025 from 1:30 PM IST. It is a match on Saturday.
Can India continue the momentum and clinch a historic series against Australia? Or will the Aussies fight back from this loss and crush India to win the series 2-1? To find out we have to wait for a couple of days and wait for Saturday to see who wins this series as both teams fine tune their preparation for the World Cup starting on 30th September 2025.
Also Read:Â IND-W vs AUS-W: Kranti Goud Stuns Australia