Fast bowler Darcie Brown starred as Australia showed their might with an emphatic 44-run victory against India in a warmup match ahead of the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup 2023 in South Africa.
Opting to bat first at the Newlands cricket ground in Cape Town, the reigning world champions were restricted to 129/8 in their 20 overs. But they responded strongly with the ball as right-arm pacer Brown picked 4/17 to bowl India out for just 85 runs in 15 overs.
Opener Beth Mooney scored 28 and all-rounder Ash Gardner contributed 22 runs in the middle over, but the rest of Australia’s top order failed to fire as India bowled with discipline.
Senior pacer Shikha Pandey, making a comeback to the team, bowled an excellent opening spell and returned with figures of 2/9 from three overs. Pooja Vastrakar and Radha Yadav also claimed two wickets apiece.
However, Georgia Wareham (32* off 17) and Jess Jonassen (22* off 14) added an unbeaten 50-run partnership for the ninth wicket that proved to be match-winning eventually.
With the bat, the Indian innings never got going. Jemimah Rodrigues faced the first ball and her poor run with the bat continued as she was dismissed for a duck off her second delivery. Smriti Mandhana, in at No 3, also walked back without scoring a run.
Deepti Sharma, who came to the crease at No 7, was the top scorer of the Indian innings with an unbeaten 19 off 22 balls. While regular skipper Harmanpreet Kaur didn’t come out to bat.
For Australia, Gardner contributed with the ball as well and returned with figures of 2/16 from three overs.
India will play another warmup game, against Bangladesh on Wednesday, before their World Cup opener against Pakistan on Sunday.