A bewitching spell of wrist-spin bowling from Poonam Yadav sank Australia on the opening night of the T20 World Cup at the Sydney Showgrounds, underlining India's status as genuine contenders to win a tournament that has heaped untold pressure on the world No. 1-ranked hosts, ESPN reports.
While Alyssa Healy made a much-needed return to runs and confidence at the top of the Australian order, the rest struggled for timing on a slow, dry surface that proved to be ideally suited to Yadav's art. A legbreak and three wrong'uns delivered her the wondrous figures of 4 for 19, and with the strong support of Shikha Pandey, Australia were confounded. Having entered 2020 as the world's undisputed T20 dominators, the hosts have now lost three games out of six and are no guarantee to make the semi-finals.
After she was dropped by Strano at midwicket, Smriti Mandhana found the boundary off Ellyse Perry, and Shafali Verma found her range against Megan Schutt, pinging four boundaries as the Indians vaulted to 0 for 40 from four overs.
The Australians knew they needed to maintain composure, and did so through the intervention of the in-form Jess Jonassen, who pinned Mandhana lbw on the slog sweep and was later to be the beneficiary of a foolhardy dance down the pitch by a keyed-up Harmanpreet Kaur and then a fortuitous stumping as the ball rebounded off Healy's pads. That after Verma had pulled her 15th ball straight to mid-on off Perry to depart for 29 off just 15 balls. Three wickets down for six in 15 balls made the rest of the innings a salvage job.
Singles were the order of the day, and Sharma was to collect no fewer than 29 of them in her sturdy, unbeaten 49. She received useful support from Jemimah Rodrigues, who had been reprieved from an early lbw decision in Perry's favour when a review showed the ball sliding past leg stump, and scored 24 runs in singles herself. So while a tally of three boundaries in the final 16 overs of the innings sounds paltry, the approach at least meant that India could reach a couple of runs beyond the average T20I score at the venue.
