India's hopes of making the T20 World Cup semifinal were left hanging by a thread following a nine-run loss to Australia in a decisive clash at the Sharjah Cricket Stadium. Harmanpreet Kaur scored a valiant unbeaten 54* and threatened to pull the rug from under the world champions in the closing stages of a tense chase of 151. However, there was no miracle, no great escape of which to speak. As a glut of wickets fell in the final over, the Indian captain was pictured hunched over her bat at the non-striker's end, crestfallen with the reality of the qualification scenario looming large. India now need Pakistan to do them a favour in tomorrow's clash against New Zealand. The holders, on the other hand, sealed qualification to yet another World Cup semifinal.
Powerful Australia reach semi-final leaving India's position dicey
Harmanpreet will revisit different parts of this game in her debrief. Among those will be a five-over stretch between overs 8 and 13 that brought just 25 runs with the experienced pair of Harmanpreet and Deepti Sharma hunkering down to rebuild to try and take the chase deep. That meant, India allowed the asking rate to climb up above 10. In the context of the game itself, it wasn't all that bad. They were 99 for 3 after 15 overs compared to Australia's 101 for 5. But where Australia are blessed with hitting power right through their line-up, India were reliant on Harmanpreet to do most of the heavy lifting.
Batting on 27 off 31 at that stage, Harmanpreet kicked into gear and managed to get to a 44-ball half-century, hitting two fours of Ash Gardner in the 18th over and another off Sophie Molineux in the 19th. But having brought the equation down from 40 off 18 to 14 off 6, she found herself away from the strike after the first ball of the final over and was powerless to have any say as Annabel Sutherland (2 for 22) produced a fine display of death-overs bowling.
India, who lost a final and semifinal to Australia in the last two T20 World Cups, found themselves having to chase again after stand-in skipper Tahlia McGrath called right at the toss. Almost immediately, Harmanpreet was left to do some eleventh-hour firefighting as Asha Sobhana picked up a
