ICC Women's World T20 2016: Indian Women lose close encounter to England Women, semi-final hopes diminish
After having lost a very close encounter against Pakistan Women in the previous match, Indian Women needed to come back with the right response in their match against England at Dharamsala. However, another poor display with the bat by the Indian Women led to yet another close loss for the home side.
England Women won the toss and chose to field. The Indian captain, Mithali Raj seemed content with batting first, but, what followed was yet another appalling batting performance as the English Women suffocated the batters and restricted the hosts to just 90/8 in 20 overs.
Despite quite a few batters getting off to decent starts, none of them were able to carry on and help India post a score of some respectability. Only Harmanpreet Kaur and Anuja Patil were the two players who had a strike rate of 100 or more.
Heather Knight was the pick of the bowlers for England as she picked up three wickets while Anya Shrubsole and Natalie Sciver picked up two wickets and one wicket each.
In spite of England losing their captain, Charlotte Edwards, early on, Tammy Beaumont and Sarah Taylor played good knocks of 20 and 16 respectively in quick time and seemed to take the game away from India, with England at 42/1 in 5.4 overs at one point of time.
Indian Women fought back well and picked up quick wickets to get back into the side. At 62/5, it looked like India could fight back and bowl out England. However, the lower order batting of England held on and helped their side get their second win in two group stage matches.
Kaur was equally good with the ball as she was with the bat as he picked up two wickets in the same over. Ekta Bisht was India's best bowler finishing with figures of 4/21 in her spell of four overs.
With this loss, Indian Women are at the brink of crashing out of the World T20 in the group stages with England Women and West Indies Women having won all the games they have played so far. India will need to put in better performances with the bat in the upcoming games if they are to stay alive in the tournament, and hope for poor performances from the other teams in their group.
Brief Scores: England Women 90/8, 20 overs (Kaur 26; Knight 3/15, Shrubsole 2/12) beat Indian Women 92/8, 19 overs (Beaumont 20, Sciver 19; Bisht 4/21, Kaur 2/22) by two wickets.