'Our girls gave their everything' - Virender Sehwag lauds India Women's efforts after their defeat against Australia

Indian women’s team led by Harmanpreet Kaur fell at the final hurdle in the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup 2020, as they were defeated soundly by the Australian team in the finale at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG). Australia became five-time T20 World Champs and the Indian team was left thinking what could have been.

The Indian batting that had been so good thanks to the 16-year-old opener Shafali Verma, who made 163 runs in the whole tournament in just 5 matches with a strike rate over 158. However, she too felt the pressure of chasing 185 runs in the all-important final match and fell in the first over for just two runs and sealed her team’s fate then and there.

All of the Indian bigwigs of batting like Mandhana, Rodrigues, Harmanpreet, and Bhatia failed to make good use of powerplay overs. Although Deepti (33), K Krishnamurthy (19) and Richa Ghosh (18) tried to do their best, the task of such a big chase proved to be too much and India folded for 99 runs and lost the match and trophy by 85 runs.

Former India captain Virender Sehwag, who was seen in action on the field in the Road Safety World Series 2020 match between India Legends and West Indies Legends and played a winning knock for his team, took to Twitter to console the Indian women’s team for their heartbreaking loss in the finals. Sehwag himself had been part of such loss in the finals of the 2003 World Cup in South Africa against Australia itself.

He tweeted, “Our girls gave their everything, just had one bad day but it was so wonderful to see the way in which they played barring today. Wishing them better luck next time. Congratulations to Australia on winning the #T20WorldCup”

Australia had won the toss and decided to bat first. Openers Beth Mooney and Alyssa Healy added 115 runs for the first wicket and took the game away from the Indian team. Mooney remained unbeaten on 78 with 10 fours, while Healy made 75 with 7 fours and 5 sixes.

Though they looked like going over 200 runs in 20 overs. Indian bowlers pulled things back a bit and restricted them to just 184/4 in 20 overs. Deepti Sharma picked 2/38, while Poonam Yadav and Radha Yadav picked one wicket each.