• Source:JND

IND-W vs AUS-W 1st ODI: Australia has beaten the defending world champions India by six wickets during the series opener on Tuesday, where they outplayed the visitors in all departments. India had put up a disappointing batting performance as they were skittled out for 241 runs, even though both Smriti Mandhana and skipper Harmanpreet Kaur had smashed fifties apiece.

How India Lost To Australia?

The Alyssa Healy-led side chased the paltry target quite comfortably, on the back of half-centuries by skipper Alyssa Healy, who is playing her last bilateral series, and Beth Mooney, who had scored a match-winning knock of 76 runs off 79 balls.

Ashleigh Gardner was the pick among the bowlers as she had registered match-winning figures of 3/33 after bowling in seven overs.

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The ongoing white-ball series is currently leveled at 2-2, where the Harmanpreet Kaur-led side had won the T20I series by 2-1. After the ongoing ODI series, both teams will play a one-off Test match in Perth, and then Healy will retire.

Even after winning the Women's ODI World Cup last year, the Women in Blue failed to dominate Australia at home.

The only good thing for the visitors was the brilliant performance of Shree Charani, who had dismissed batters like Phoebe Litchfield and Georgia Voll on successive balls.

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Harmanpreet Kaur won the toss and chose to bat first in Brisbane.

Since Kim Garth and Ellyse Perry had been ruled out owing to injuries, fast bowlers Megan Schutt and Lucy Hamilton were added to the team at the last moment.

Megan immediately struck as she took the wicket of Pratika Rawal by bowling a brilliant inswinger during the first over.

Rawal had returned to the national side after a long injury layoff sustained in the ODI World Cup last year.

Shafali Varma had come into bat at the no.3 position for the first time and was seen struggling as Darcie Brown then took her catch.

Mandhana started her innings by smashing some fours and then played some brilliant drives in the fast bowler's overs.

But the Australian spinners piled some pressure during the middle overs, where Gardner dismissed Jemimah Rodrigues as her bat had got the outside edge.

Post Mandhana and Deepti Sharma's dismissal, Harmanpreet helped the team bounce back for a while, but Gardner did take her wicket eventually.

Kashvee Gautam's gritty knock of 43 runs helped the team post a target of 200 runs.

In her knock, she had smashed three sixes, which also included one straight over long-on in Megan Schutt's over.


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