Australia v India: second women’s T20 international – live!

First of all, what a finish from Pooja Vastrakar. All seemed lost at 81 for 9, she’s got eight teammates who made single-figure scores tonight, but she kept cool to smack 37 from 26 balls tonight, including a number of declined runs, and give India six per over to defend.

She doesn’t have a WBBL contract, unlike eight of her squad mates, but there are a couple of teams with an overseas spot left. Go on.

Gayakwad played her part, too, in staying there to let Vastrakar keep batting.

That gives India something to work with. It should be Australia’s match, their batting power should do this easily, but there’s just a chance. A run a ball can be defended if a couple of wickets fall early and the pressure comes on.

The chase will come round in a minute.

20th over: India 118-9 (Vastrakar 37, Gayakwad 0) Darlington to close. Vastrakar clears her front leg and savages it down the ground! Darlington just ducks, and it goes a metre or so over her head and splits the two boundary riders straight.

Really slow to follow from Darlington, and Vastrakar finds long-off. Doesn’t run.

Third ball, backs away, carves over cover! Deserves four but McGrath puts in a fine dive, parries towards Carey, and keeps them to two.

Vastrakar back on strike, and she hits down the ground for six! Flat-batted, that one, not much sophistication but plenty of distance hitting off a length. All power.

Two balls to come. Darlington looks nervous. Tosses the ball hand to hand. Pace off. Vastrakar gets a top edge but it lands safely in front of long-off, and they don’t run. Might even have run two there if they’d gone immediately.

Last one of the night… Vastrakar charges and pulls four! Out through midwicket, could have been stopped on the rope but it gets through Gardner on the dive.

19th over: India 102-9 (Vastrakar 21, Gayakwad 0) No running for Vastrakar. Down on one knee, trying to smash Molineux over midwicket, but instead straight to long-off. The run is declined. She goes squarer next ball, into a gap and back for two. Down the ground again, and again no run taken. A bit of flight from Molineux, and the helicopter from Vastrakar, wrist-whipping the ball to long-on and this time does take the single. Gayakwad is hit on the pad but it’s probably angling down leg, not out.

18th over: India 99-9 (Vastrakar 18, Gayakwad 0) Smashed by Vastrakar! Length from Carey but she’s able to get underneath it, lifted down the ground and way over the rope, just inside the fence at this ground. Next ball, rocks back and hammers it through cover for four! Flat and fierce. That helps. Takes a single from the third ball. Carey chips in with a ride to the No11 Rajeshwari Gayakwad. The batter plays a Test match leave to the next ball… then sees one go down the leg side for five wides! Off Healy’s fingertips, the keeper up to the stumps for her seamer. So Gayakwad has helped add six runs just by standing there. Prods the next to point, no run. One to come. And defends! Bat and pad together in classic style.

So the chase will be three figures, at least, and Vastrakar can swing at the last two overs.

17th over: India 81-9 (Vastrakar 7) Molineux bowling, and now it’s not especially fair, all of the work being left to the tail. The best they can do is squeeze a few singles, and Renuka Singh ends the over by having a big drive and missing another ball aimed at the stumps.

16th over: India 78-8 (Vastrakar 5) Another one! Last ball of the over, Shikha Pandey backs away to make room, hoping for something short, then sees the ball turning in at her stumps. Tries to force off the back foot but misses.

Another run out! And we don’t know who has been dismissed, as they end up at the same end. Again it’s the second run that brings them undone. Deepti Sharma clips to deep midwicket. Touches in, turns for the second, then bails out and turns back. But Vastrakar keeps running, and in her full-tilt sprint to make it to the striker’s end, she touches her bat in fractionally before Deepti does. It takes a photo-finish adjudication to decide who is out. Calamitous.

15th over: India 75-6 (Deepti 15, Vastrakar 4) And when you’re India, and you want to cut loose through the dying overs, you come against Hannah Darlington. All she’s done for long periods of her WBBL career is run in and hit yorkers. Changes of pace, really hard to smash away. So she does just that here, three singles and a leg bye.

14th over: India 71-6 (Deepti 13, Vastrakar 3) Carey continuing, and Vastrakar is doing her job, finding singles promptly when she comes on strike. Deepti can hit big, but she often takes quite a long time to get set, and soaks up a lot of bowling first. Can’t afford that in this situation. Drives a couple out to deep extra cover. Fakes a back-away, then dinks a single off her pads. Vastrakar taps another to mid-off and bolts.

13th over: India 65-6 (Deepti 9, Vastrakar 1) Deepti misses a sweep shot, hit on the forearm in front of the stumps by Gardner, but that would have been bouncing above the bails. Just a few singles trickling from the over. India in strife.

With 42 balls left, even if they cut sick from here they’ll struggle to reach 120. Could easily be held under 100.

12th over: India 61-6 (Deepti 8) The slide continues for India! Nicola Carey bowls a really tidy over, dot ball pressure, and having already faced nine balls for 2, Ghosh is desperate to score. Walks at Carey, tries to hit over mid-off, misses, and Carey’s main characteristic with the ball is bowling straight at the stumps.

11th over: India 60-5 (Ghosh 2, Deepti 7) Wareham continues, and Deepti sweeps her fine with finesse, getting low and helping it around the corner. Deft.

10th over: India 53-5 (Ghosh 1, Deepti 1) Halfway mark. Gardner has bowled two overs for 6 runs. Deepti Sharma is in the middle.

They’re not together for long. Ghosh clips towards midwicket and they run the first. Bhatia turns for a second, Ghosh bails out, but too late for Bhatia to turn and get back to the striker’s end. India chucking this series away.

9th over: India 50-4 (Bhatia 7, Ghosh 0) The two young guns then, Yastika Bhatia and Richa Ghosh together.

That’s beautiful bowling! Wareham has not been backed by Lanning lately, and only got a bowl very late in the innings on Thursday night. She comes on earlier here and picks up the player who is going so well. Lots of flight from Wareham, draws Harmanpreet down the track to hit towards long-on, then the trajectory of the ball drops it low under the bat and through into Healy’s gloves. Proper leg-spin deception.

8th over: India 43-3 (Harmanpreet 26, Bhatia 2) When Harry met Perry! The Australian record-breaker bowls again, but Harmanpreet dominates this over. A simple leg-glance for four, then a cut shot that splits the field for another, and more adventurously, a pull shot flipped over deep backward for a third! That’s 15 from the over, India’s best of the night.

7th over: India 28-3 (Harmanpreet 13, Bhatia 1) Down the wicket comes Bhatia against Gardner, hitting her out through square leg but fielded out there. Then Harmanpreet is nearly run out, wanting to come back for a second but Bhatia says no, and Harmanpreet turns back and dives into her ground just ahead of Healy smashing the stumps.

6th over: India 25-3 (Harmanpreet 11, Bhatia 0) Over to Yastika Bhatia, the young up-and-comer in this side. She’s played really well so far in the series, but either at first drop or coming in with some runs on the board. Today she has a bigger job to do. The left-hander steps down and smacks Molineux flat and straight, but the bowler stops the shot.

End of the powerplay, dominant for Australia.

Molineux back with the ball, Lanning mixing and matching. Rodrigues tries to cut off her stumps, but can’t get it away a couple of times. So she changes up, coming down the track to hit over the leg side. Doesn’t get much purchase, and Darlington at midwicket gets a simple one.

5th over: India 24-2 (Rodrigues 7, Harmanpreet 10) Almost a third for Vlaeminck! Squeezed away to midwicket by Rodrigues, wide of the all-rounder who dives across and gets her left hand to it, but low to the ground and can’t hang on.

That brings Harmanpreet on strike, and she gets the first convincing shot away for India! A flick off the pads, leg-stump line and comfortably sent over square leg for four. Next ball, Vlaeminck moves her line a few inches towards off, but Harmanpreet shuffles the same way. In effect, same delivery, and same result.

Harmanpreet looked in great touch for all of the five balls she faced the other night, after a long injury layoff. Similarly crisp tonight.

4th over: India 14-2 (Rodrigues 6, Harmanpreet 1) Ellyse Perry is on to bowl early, in the match where she goes past Alex Blackwell’s record for the most matches for Australia. Bowls nicely, too, a bit of swing outside the off stump, and only a couple of singles conceded as Rodrigues edges to deep third, and Harmanpreet pulls a short one.

3rd over: India 12-2 (Rodrigues 5, Harmanpreet 0) One ball left in the Vlaeminck over, which beats Harmanpreet’s outside edge as the captain pushes down the line.

Two for Tay. Verma backs away to the leg side and wallops across the line, trying to send this downtown somewhere. Anywhere. Instead she send it a long way up, which counts as somewhere but it’s the wrong kind of somewhere. Darlington standing on the paint at mid-on takes the catch. Both openers gone, that really throws India.

2nd over: India 9-1 (Verma 3, Rodrigues 2) Sophie Molineux with left-arm spin from the other end, the same powerplay tactic as Australia used the other night without success. That time she got whacked for three boundaries, this time the batters work four singles.

1st over: India 5-1 (Verma 1) Tayla Vlaeminck gets the new ball as she did the other night. The quickest in Australia’s armoury, and her warm-up deliveries are already close to 120 kph. Gets the first ball to swerve in at Mandhana, who does well to keep it out of her pads in front of middle stump and run a single. Verma on strike, and she can do all sorts of things. Hit three sixes while making 18 the other night, didn’t score a non-six run.

Vlaeminck isn’t all smooth though: bowls wide down the leg side, then oversteps. Mandhana gets the free hit, but smacks it straight at Darlington at mid-off. Wide again to follow, a nine-ball over.

But that gets Vlaeminck the wicket. With the ninth ball, Mandhana hits across the line, thick inside edge that squirts away flat towards midwicket and Carey is able to dive and get hands under it. Quite the opening salvo.

Both unchanged from Thursday night.

India
Shafali Verma
Smriti Mandhana
Jemimah Rodrigues
Harmanpreet Kaur *
Yastika Bhatia
Richa Ghosh +
Pooja Vastrakar
Deepti Sharma
Shikha Pandey
Rajeshwari Gayakwad
Renuka Singh

Australia
Alyssa Healy +
Beth Mooney
Meg Lanning *
Ashleigh Gardner
Ellyse Perry
Tahlia McGrath
Nicola Carey
Sophie Molineux
Georgia Wareham
Hannah Darlington
Tayla Vlaeminck

Same as the first T20 match, then, when the Aussies put India in, and got carted everywhere. This should be extra fun.