North Sound: India's winning dream of world title has been shattered after they suffered an eight-wicket defeat at the hands of England in the semi-finals of the ICC Women's World T20 on Friday.
India lost their last eight wickets for 24 runs to end up scoring a below-par 112 in 19.3 overs.India decided to leave their senior most player Mithali Raj.England's seasoned campaigners Amy Jones (53 no, 47 balls) and Natalie Sciver (52 off 40 balls) added 92 runs for the unbroken third-wicket stand to finish the match in only 17.1 overs.
It was again the other big story of Indian women, after having lost the 50-over World Cup final to England at Lord's last year and the Asia Cup T20 final to Bangladesh, earlier this year.
As many as seven players failed to get double digit scores and the spin-attack was unable to adapt to a different surface at the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium after playing all their matches at Providence in Guyana.
On a track where the ball wasn't coming on to the bat, it was the Englishwomen,. who came up with left-arm spinners Kirstie Gordon (2/20in 4 overs) and Sophie Ecclestone (2/22 in 3.2 overs).
Skipper Heather Knight's off-breaks was an icing on the cake as she had the best figures of 3 for 9 in two overs as none of India's middle and lower-order batters could force the pace.
Once Smriti Mandhana (33, 24 balls), Jemimah Rodriguez (26 off 26 balls) and skipper Harmanpreet Kaur (16, 20 balls) were dismissed, there wasn't any Plan B with Veda Krishnamurthy completely out of form and Deepti Sharma (7, 10 balls) incapable of hitting big shots.
At Guyana, it was a slow track where the ploy of taking pace off the deliveries worked for the likes of Poonam Yadav (0/29 in 4 overs), Deepti (1/24 in 4 overs) and Anuja Patil (0/27 in 3.1 overs).However the Antigua track was even slower where they needed change the pace and bowl a little faster.
The deliveries being slow through the air gave both Englishwomen enough time to rock on the backfoot and hit shots all round the wicket as a much-hyped clash turned into a lopsided contest.
Reigning ODI World World Champions England will now meet Australia in the summit clash after the Southern Stars beat defending champions West Indies by 72 runs.(UNI)