Key events
5th over: India 40-1 (Smriti 15, Jemimah 12)
Garth returns for a second over after a successful first over from her. Jemimah immediately attacks and chips one over the infield for two before a lovely sweep behind her that evades Harris and flies to the boundary. Garth tightens up her line and slows the scoring rate and then catching Smriti’s edge, but with the field up for the powerplay, there isn’t a fielder close enough to get to it.
4th over: India 31-1 (Smriti 13, Jemimah 5)
A big appeal on the first ball of the over and there’s a long chat about whether they’ll appeal. Molineux pulls out the DRS signal right on the final second, which is becoming a trademark move for her! However, the review reveals Smriti got bat on the ball and not pad and they lose the review. Then there’s a catching opportunity, but Perry can’t quite hang on. Finally Smriti gets one away for four – it’s all happening this over!
3rd over: India 23-1 (Smriti 6, Jemimah 4)
Kim Garth replaces Brown after that less than ideal first over. A good call from Molineux to give Brown some time to sit back and watch the game and prepare to adjust her lines and lengths. Garth starts well, but Shafali sees one she likes on the third ball of the over and pounces, pulling it past fine leg for four. However, Garth retaliates next ball with the wicket. Jemimah gets off the mark with a two straight away, followed by another to close out the over.
WICKET! Shafali c Sutherland b Garth 7 (India 19-1)
Garth gets the breakthrough, luring Shafali into one too many aggressive shots and it’s straight up in the air. Sutherland has to navigate Perry in her vicinity but makes the early call and takes the catch.
2nd over: India 14-0 (Smriti 5, Shafali 3)
Gardner comes in for the second over to open from the other end. Shafali attacks immediately, coming down the pitch and attempts to drive it back over Gardner’s head, but the ball catches the edge instead. It falls safely, just past Litchfield and Shafali is off the mark. It’s a fairly tight over from Gardner, just four runs from it.
1st over: India 10-0 (Smriti 4, Shafali 0)
Not the best start for Darcie Brown with new ball in hand, a wide from the first ball, two wides from the second and another wide from the third – maybe some nerves opening the bowling in front of a home crowd. Finally she gets a legal delivery away and it’s leg byes, before yet another wide. The first runs scored from the bat come via a beautiful four from Smriti and finally after 10 balls, the first over is complete.
The teams are on the field now and the first ball is coming up very soon!
Don’t forget if you have any thoughts to share on tonight’s match, you can send me an email – the details are at the top of the page. I’ll do my best to include your emails in the blog where I can. You can also tell me about your own game this weekend if you like – I’ve just returned from scoring a match for the mighty Summer Hill CC U13 Girls, who had a 59-run win in their T20 match today, so I’d love to hear about your day in the field as well!
If you want a bit of a refresher on the last match before this one begins, you can peruse the blog from the other night – we’ve still got some time for you to catch up before the first ball!
One change each for the sides – for India, it’s Shreyanka Patil who comes back into the side after playing game one and missing game two, with Kranti Gaud out tonight. For Australia, we get our first look at Grace Harris for this series, coming in to replace Nicola Carey, who has not bowled as many overs as we would have expected. It will be interesting to see if Harris’s off spin is deployed much in this match, or whether she is simply in as a late order hitter noting that runs have been hard to come by at the end of both of Australia’s innings so far.
India XI
1. Shafali Verma
2. Smriti Mandhana
3. Jemimah Rodrigues
4. Harmanpreet Kaur
5. Richa Ghosh
6. Amanjot Kaur
7. Deepti Sharma
8. Arundhati Reddy
9. Shreyanka Patil
10. Sree Charani
11. Renuka Singh Thakur
Australia XI
1. Beth Mooney (wk)
2. Georgia Voll
3. Phoebe Litchfield
4. Ellyse Perry
5. Ash Gardner
6. Georgia Wareham
7. Annabel Sutherland
8. Grace Harris
9. Sophie Molineux
10. Kim Garth
11. Darcie Brown
India wins the toss and elects to bat
India have decided to have a bat – captain Harmanpreet Kaur thinks the Adelaide pitch looks good for batting and she wants to put a good total on the board. Australia captain Sophie Molineux says they were going to bowl anyway, so she’s happy with the call!
Preamble
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Megan Maurice
Here we are, all tied up in the T20 series within a series – both Australia and India with one win apiece. India made the most of the rain affected conditions in the first match, bowling Australia out short of their 20 overs and then racing to 1-50 before the rain hit to secure a comfortable win on DLS. Australia showed plenty of fight to turn things around in Canberra, led by a determined Georgia Voll 88 and very tight bowling from Annabel Sutherland when the pressure was on. Shafali Verma and Smriti Mandhana got India off to a flying start with the bat, but once Shafali was out, the runs stalled. A strong middle order partnership between Harmanpreet Kaur and Richa Ghosh wasn’t enough to get them across the line and Australia took the win by 19 runs.
Tonight’s match will be an emotional one for the Australians, with Ellyse Perry bringing up 350 international matches across all three formats. She becomes the first Australian woman and third overall to reach that milestone. A much-loved figure in the dressing room, the team will be desperate for a win and a strong performance to celebrate Perry’s big game in style.
With the same playing 11 in both matches for Australia and just one change for India, it will be interesting to see if there are any changes for tonight’s match. Tahlia McGrath, Grace Harris and Megan Schutt have all yet to play for Australia, while India has Vaishnavi Sharma, Uma Chetry and Bharti Fulmali waiting in the wings.
The toss is imminent, so let’s get into it and find out how they’ll line up tonight!