India Women Cricket team proved that they are not behind the men’s team when it comes to winning a test match at the home ground. They beat the Australia Women team by 8 wickets in Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai on the 4th day of the one-off match on December 24, 2023. The match has historical significance for the hosts because it is their first win against Australia in the total 11 test matches played between these two teams since 1977.
What Worked for the India Women Team
Indian Spinners Became Hiccups for the Aussies
The India Women team seemed to enter the match with a determination to accept nothing but a victory. Indians are always the stronger front at the homeground because of their spin bowling maestros. In this match too, the spinners were the key behind the victory. Australia won the toss and chose to bat first. Clearly the strategy failed to have its desired impact for the team.
Indian spinners packed the Aussies in just 219 runs in 77.4 overs on Day 1. Tahlia McGrath made a half-century off 56 balls with 8 boundaries. Beth Mooney made 40 runs off 94 balls while captain Alyssa Healy made 38 runs off 75 balls. And these are the top 3 run-scorers of the Australian side on Day 1. This bright beginning for India was orchestrated by the right-arm medium pacer Pooja Vastrakar and was supported by spinner Sneh Rana.
Pooja scalped 4 Australian batters in the 1st innings at the cost of only 53 runs in 16 overs. She was the highest wicket-taker of the day for India. On the other hand, Sneh bowled 22.4 overs and took 3 wickets at the cost of 56 runs. Although Pooja did not work out any magical spell in the 2nd innings of the Aussies, Sneh managed 4 wickets totalling to 7 hunts in the entire match and the title of ‘Player of the Match’.
However, the Indian bowlers gave away more runs in the 2nd innings and the Australians were all out after collecting 261 runs. McGrath made 73 runs with 10 boundaries and the 2nd highest scorer was Ellyse Perry who made 45 runs with 5 boundaries. And with that, the Indians batswomen were given a target of 75 runs to win the match.
“At the end of the day we had one bad day on the first day, but the rest of the time we showed a lot of fight, so – proud of the effort. It’s our first opportunity to play red-ball cricket over here. So we are learning on our feet.”
- Alyssa Healy on their first defeat against India in a test match
Indian Batswomen Scored 406 Runs in the 1st Innings!
Well, that 1st innings pretty much set the base for the victory for the India Women Team against the Australia Women Team in this one-off test series in Wankhede. The batters were definitely determined to not stay behind the bowlers in the battle for victory and it was seen through their performance. Some 200 spectators showed up at the stadium on the 4 days to cheer for their girls where 12 years back the men’s team created history by winning the world championship for the 2nd time in history.
The Indians batted to their heart’s content in the 1st innings when they came to the field to reply to the 219 runs made by the Aussies. 4 half-centuries were made by Smriti Mandhana (74 runs with 12 boundaries), Richa Ghosh (52 runs with 7 boundaries), Jemimah Rodrigues (73 runs with 9 boundaries), and Deepti Sharma (78 runs with 9 boundaries). Opener Shafali Verma and all-rounder Pooja Vastrakar scored 40 and 47 runs respectively. Clearly the crowd left the stadium in a jolly mood. The Australian bowlers were outstanding too- Ashleigh Gardner picked 4 wickets at the cost of 100 runs in 41 overs in the 1st innings; but the Indian batters were a tad better.
The celebration was yet an inning away. And when the target was just 75 runs, the Indian batswomen were surely out of patience for they did not take much time to finish it off on the 4th day of the match in only 18.4 overs! The Indian women scored 75 runs at the cost of 2 wickets. Smriti Mandhana scored 38 runs off 61 balls along with the match-winning boundary.
“But if you showed patience, it wasn’t that hard. I told Shafali to bat as we batted in the first innings. Just react to the ball, that was the only message we had.”
- Smriti Mandhana on beating Australia for the first time in a test match
Sharing a Record while Building a Strong Future
Though the India Women team was always having an upper-hand in the match, the Australia Women team did have a brief fight-back moment in the second innings when their score was 206 runs for 3 wickets. But that glimpse of hope did not last long, thanks to the Indian bowlers, especially Sneh Rana. On other hand, this was the 3rd consecutive home-test victory for the Indian female cricketers.
The first time this Indian team won a home test match was in 2014 against South Africa. And just a few days before beating the Aussies, they beat the England Women team in the same month by 347 runs in yet another one-off test series in DY Patil Stadium. Only the Australia Women team held this record previously by winning three consecutive test matches at home in 1991 & 1992.
Harmanpreet Kaur & Co. left no stone unturned when they got the opportunity to make a mark of their own in the home-tests and winning those too. Surely, they have created a strong potential for holding more test matches at the home ground in future with their back-to-back wins. Along with that, these victories have brought a successful start of the journey for the team’s new coach Amol Mazumdar.
With such consecutive victories, the future of the India Women Cricket team surely looks very bright and that is because these victories saw the younger members of the team- Shubha Satheesh, Richa Ghosh, Renuka Singh Thakur and Jemimah Rodrigues- in really high spirits and twinkling eyes with dreams for the future!
