It's festive season for Indian women cricketers. Days after thrashing England by a world-record margin in Navi Mumbai, Harmanpreet Kaur & Co. humbled Australia by eight wickets in Mumbai for a historic Test win, a first against Southern Stars in 11 attempts. (Scorecard | Cricket News)
Meeting for the first time in India since 1984, Indian women knocked off the required 75-run target in 18.4 overs with relative ease. They did lose a couple of wickets -- those of Shafali Verma (4 off 4) and Richa Ghosh (13 off 32) -- in a chase which purists would call a harried one before vice-captain Smriti Mandhana hit the winning runs - a four off Jess Jonassen.
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Now the head-to-head record reads 4-1 in favour of the Australian women. For India though, the win, and more importantly the margin of victory tells a different story, that they have arrived in the Test arena too. Of course, the thrashing of England at DY Patil Stadium gave some embellishment to the claim.
The final day of the India women vs Australia women, one-off Test at the iconic Wankhede Stadium started with the visitors on 233/5. But India took 75 minutes to remove the remaining five Australian wickets for just 28 runs, thus setting themselves a target of 75 runs for their first-ever Test win against Australia.
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Gayakwad, who went wicketless in Australia's first essay in 13 overs, wrapped up the innings with the final two wickets for figures of 2/42 in 28.4. But it was her fellow spinner, Sneh Rana who rocked the Aussies in the second innings: 4/22 in 22 overs. Rana was later declared the player of the match.
Skipper Harmanpreet also claimed two important wickets, removing a resolute Tahlia McGrath (73 off 177) who was involved in two good stands, to make up for her poor batting show (a duck). McGrath, by the way, was also the leading scorer for Australia in the first innings with a quickfire 50 off 56.
Earlier, Australia captain Alyssa Healy won the toss and opted to bat first. But they managed only 219 runs with Pooja Vastrakar (4/53) and Sneha Raha (3/22) taking four and three wickets, respectively.
In reply, India women got off a strong start with Verma (40 off 59) and vice-captain Smriti Mandhana (74 off 106) putting on 90 runs for the opening wicket. The innings then witnessed half-centuries from Richa Ghosh (52 off 104), Jemimah Rodrigues (73 off 121) and Deepti Sharma (78 off 171), while Pooja Vastrakar played a patient knock of 47 runs from 126 balls. The result was a big first innings total of 406 runs, a lead of 187 runs. And it proved decisive.
