India's defeated West Indies comprehensively by eight-wickets here today but the result was not good enough to ensure them a place in Sunday's summit-clash of the ICC Women's World Cup.
India's defeated West Indies comprehensively by eight-wickets here today but the result was not good enough to ensure them a place in Sunday's summit-clash of the ICC Women's World Cup.
The Indians, who has a slim chance of making it to the final show down, were dealt a severe blow with Australia tilting their fate by posting a eight-wicket win over England in another Super Six match today.
For progressing to the final, India needed to beat the West Indies today and hoped that New Zealand go down to Pakistan and England beat Australia in the respective Super Six matches.
India, however, got a chance to make amends for the disappointment as the win over West Indies has ensured them a place in the third-place playoff match against Australia on Saturday with both the teams automatically qualifying for the next World Cup.
Chasing a timid target of 84 at the Bankstown Oval here, the Indians romped home with 193 balls to spare with opener Sulakshana Naik (39 0ff 48) and in-form Mithali Raj (34 off 41) doing the bulk of the scoring.
Earlier, West Indian skipper Merissa Aguilleira's decision to bat first backfired as right-arm spinner Priyanka Roy (4/14) recored her career-best figures to run through the West Indian batting order after Amita Sharma (2/14) and Rumeli Dhar (1/16) did the early damage.
The weak West Indian batting line up cut a sorry figure once again as five of their batters made ducks including captain Aguilleira.
Opener Stafanie Taylor (29) and one-down Pamela Lavine tried hard to resurrect the innings with a 45-run first-wicket partnership, but after the dismissal of Lavine in the 15th over, the West Indians batting order crumbled like a pack of card, losing their last seven wickets for just 12 runs.
In reply, the Indians started their timid run chase on a cautious note with opening duo of Anjum Chopra (3) and Naik adding 25 runs in six overs.
With a modest target to chase, Indian skipper Jhulan decided to give debutant Poonam Raut a chance ahead of experienced Mithali but the 19-year-old squandered the opportunity and registered her name in the record books by scoring a duck in her first match.
From there on, there was no looking back for the Indians as Naik and Mithali played sensibly to avoid further hiccups an take their side to victory in 17.5 overs. For the Windies, pacer D Lewis scalped both the Indian wickets.
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