Meg Lanning introduced Ashleigh Gardner right away instead of starting with pace, knowing full well about India batters' recent struggle with spin bowling.
Shafali Verma (9), who had an 'okay' outing while fielding, started well against Gardner, but was dismissed in the subsequent over by Megan Schutt off an LBW.
India's bad start turned worse when Gardner dismissed Smriti Mandhana for 2, her fourth instance of getting the opener's scalp in T20Is, the scoreboard reading 15-2.
Jemimah Rodrigues came in and scored fours from two consecutive deliveries easing some of the pressure.
A mix-up between Rodrigues and Yastika Bhatia saw the latter get run out for 4, sounding the alarm for the batters to come.
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Harmanpreet Kaur, who was unsure of starting the match, started her batting with a textbook cover drive for four. The two experienced players being in the middle was what India needed, as they struck the occasional boundaries while rotating the strike on good balls.
Harmanpreet took on Jess Jonassen, hitting the first six of the innings over long-on.
India's total was much better in the powerplay as compared to the previous games, which saw the scoreboard read 59 runs despite losing three wickets after 6 overs.
The pair were now managing to score a boundary per over at least, accompanied by singles and doubles, with the required run rate being just over 8.
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Harmanpreet and Rodrigues brought up their 50-run partnership after despite India losing early wickets.
Rodrigues, especially, turned it on for India, scoring 13 runs off Georgia Wareham taking the score to 93-3 after 10 overs.
