In the semi-finals, Australia scored a big score of 172 runs against India and the team’s poor fielding was the biggest role in this.
Image Credit source: PTI
Whatever be the cricket match, apart from good batting and bowling, accurate fielding also has a big role to play. If this match is being played in a World Cup, then the importance of fielding increases even more. One small mistake and the match slips out of hand. Especially if the match is of World Cup semi-final and the team in front is world champion Australia, then there is absolutely no scope for such mistakes. However, Team India could not understand this and in their semi-final match of Women’s T20 World Cup 2023, Team India presented a sample of poor fielding.
In the semi-final of the T20 World Cup against Australia on Thursday, February 23 at the Newlands ground in Cape Town, Team India came out to bowl first and initially the bowlers did not give the Australian batsmen a chance to play freely. This was the reason that only 43 runs were scored till the sixth over. These runs would have been less if Team India had performed a little better in fielding as misfielding was visible from the initial overs itself.
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Missed chances in two consecutive overs
The real game happened after the powerplay when India gave two lives to Australia in two consecutive overs. In the 9th over, Australian captain Meg Lanning was caught on the second ball of Radha Yadav, but wicketkeeper Richa Ghosh could not capitalize on this opportunity which came straight into the glove and the catch slipped. If this was not enough, then in the very next over, he again missed the chance of a catch.
This time, the fourth ball of Sneh Rana’s over was played high by Beth Mooney at long-off, but Shefali Verma, posted at the boundary, dropped this very easy catch and the ball went for 4 runs.
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Two catches cost 70 runs
At the time when the catch was missed, Meg Lanning had scored only 1 run in 2 balls while Beth Mooney had scored 32 runs in 25 balls. Mooney was finally dismissed in the 12th over but he added 22 runs in the next 12 balls. She returned to the pavilion after scoring 54 runs in 37 balls. At the same time, Lanning remained unbeaten till the end and scored 49 runs in just 34 balls, out of which 18 runs came in the last over only. That is, in total, Lanning scored 48 extra runs and in this way the cost of two catches cost Team India as 70 runs.
Left run out, also gave fours
By the way, not only the catch, but in the 17th over, India also left a chance of run out. There was a blunder between Lanning and Ashley Gardner for the second run and Gardner had crossed more than half of the pitch but Jemima Rodríguez instead of throwing the ball to the keeper, threw it to the bowler and missed the chance of run out. Apart from these mistakes, the ball slipped from the hands of the Indian fielders many times and in such a situation, where there was one run, two runs were found or some boundaries were also lost.
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