IND W vs AUS W | India Player Ratings - Ruthless Aussies demolish sorrow-faced India

ByAnirudh Suresh, SportsCafe Editor

03/08/2020

The last time Australia batted first in a major final against India, things did not go well for the team in Blue. 17 years later, things were no different. The Aussies, right from the very first ball, blew a shell-shocked India out of the park with their aggression to clinch their fifth WT20 title.

Shafali Verma (1/10)

Sport can be cruel and today, on the biggest day of her life so far, Shafali realized that. The youngster’s day started off with her dropping Healy on just the fifth delivery of the match - a drop that cost the team 66 runs. Then, chasing a mammoth 185, with the hopes of an entire nation resting on her shoulders, all she could do was last three balls before nicking one to the keeper. Not going to lie, it gave me heavy Sachin 2003 vibes. A very unnecessary callback.

Smriti Mandhana (2.5/10)

Smriti’s World Cup started with a scratchy innings versus Australia, and it was kind of fitting that her World Cup ended the same way. In fact, her knock today at the MCG was her in this WT20 in a nutshell - never looking in touch, never looking under control, getting the odd boundary before facing the inevitable death knell. Like the rest of us, Mandhana, too, must be wondering where the prodigal left-hander who took the world by storm in 2018 WT20 has disappeared.

Jemimah Rodrigues (3/10)

When the pressure of the final gets to you and starts eating you up, more often than not, you don’t make your way out of it unscatched - not if you’re the Messiah, not if you’re Jemimah. Was she right in going for a big hit on just her second ball? Yes, of course, the situation demanded the same. Did she get her execution all wrong? Yes. Was it careless or irresponsible? Absolutely not. There’s not much you can do when your team is 8/1 in 2 overs in the final chasing 185. A disappointing night for Jemimah, nevertheless, but she can be proud of herself for giving it all. She, single-handedly, ended up saving 8-10 runs on the field. Just not her day, unfortunately.

Harmanpreet Kaur (1/10)

I’m trying to get my head around and think if I’ve ever seen ANY player, let alone skipper, have such a disastrous tournament. Nope, not even Warner’s 2019 Ashes remotely comes close to Harmanpreet’s World Cup - AT LEAST he scored a fifty. It does look like the ‘Harmanpreet Thor’ we once knew is and well and truly gone and replaced by a different, more sophisticated version of herself that can’t….bat. 30 runs in 5 innings at a strike rate of 71.42 paints a picture in itself.

Veda Krishnamurthy (3/10)

Unlike the first four games, today, there wasn’t much Veda could do when she walked in to bat. The game was lost when he came out to the middle - at 30/4 - and the game was lost when she got out. As futile a knock as you’ll ever come across in a World Cup final. At least she can sleep tonight - unlike the 2017 World Cup final - knowing that it wasn’t her wicket that led to the team losing the final.

Richa Ghosh (6/10)

Richa did not have quite the Labsuchagne-esque impact today, but did show more intent and out-perform many of her teammates in her short stay at the middle. That a 16-year-old concussion substitute who scored 18 ended up being the team’s third-highest run-getter in a chase of 185 speaks a story in itself. One thing’s for sure, though. She is here to stay. In the little opportunities she’s gotten in this tournament, she has proved that she has the mettle and the maturity to succeed at the very highest level.

Taniya Bhatia (8/10)

I guess you can say Taniya Bhatia is one of the very few Indian players who can proudly boast that she had a flawless World Cup. Again, as we all know, she is in the team as a specialist wicket-keeper and a specialist wicket-keeper only, and today, once again, she provided the bowlers with all the support they needed. She took the only opportunity that came her way - the stumping of Ash Gardner - and did an exceptional job to limit the count of ‘byes’ to just one. Perhaps, she could go back on work a bit on her batting, she did the job that was asked of her to perfection.

Deepti Sharma (3/10)

I’m not quite sure what the other players had for breakfast, but if the first over of the final was any evidence, then it looks obvious to me that Deepti had some toast with ‘nerves juice’. The first ball of the match - a rank full-toss - set the tone for Australia and Alyssa Healy to tee off. She did her best to emulate Zaheer Khan’s first over in the 2003 World Cup final alright.

Shikha Pandey (2/10)

Shikha Pandey entered the game undercooked - thanks to the spinners doing a lion share of the work in the group stages - and it was evident from her very first over. She was not able to adjust to the left-right combination of Mooney and Healy - strayed way too often towards the left-hander’s pads - and was guilty of feeding the ball to the batters at unthreatening speeds and areas. Her dream of a hat-trick in a World Cup final did come true - albeit it being that of conceding three consecutive sixes.

Rajeshwari Gayakwad (8/10)

Throughout the entirety of the tournament, so much focus has been on the two Yadavs - Poonam and Radha - that Rajeshwari’s performances have genuinely gone under the radar. And if it wasn’t for her spell of 0/29 today, for all we know, the Aussies could have scored well over 200. She was the first - and only - Indian bowler to read the pitch, and, by considerably slowing the pace down, purchased turn off the wicket and troubled the openers. Rajeshwari Gayakwad, more like Raja Rajeshwari Gayakwad.

Radha Yadav (4/10)

Radha Yadav showed more aggression on the field than she did with the ball. Like a flurry of other Indian bowlers, the left-armer seemed to have gotten her lost in the enormity of the occasion. At no point in the innings did she look threatening and, despite bowling three of her overs in the middle, ended up leaking one too many runs for the team’s liking. Another disappointing display from an experienced campaigner.

Poonam Yadav (5/10)

Like she’s done all tournament, Poonam did slow the pace of her deliveries, but unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to slow the Aussies down. But to be fair to her, it did look like Meg Lanning’s team came out with a clear-cut plan to negate Poonam’s threat: frustrate the bowler by not taking risks, minimize the dots but keep the runs ticking by exploiting the big ground at their disposal. There was just one boundary in Poonam’s 24-ball spell and yet, the Aussies collected 30 runs off it. The secret? Just 2 of those 24 were dots.