Australia won the third and final Twenty20 international against India by seven wickets on Tuesday to secure a 2-1 series win.
Set 148 to win Australia chased the target with eight balls to spare, with Alyssa Healy taking the lead with a 38-ball 55 while Beth Mooney anchored the innings with an unbeaten 45-ball 52.
There were clever cameos from Tahlia McGrath (20 off 15) and Phoebe Litchfield (17 not out from 13) and great bowling from Annabel Sutherland and Georgia Wareham as India reached 147. Ellyse Perry, who celebrated her 300th appearance for Australia with a hit of a six in the second match, won runs and was in search of a golden duck.
Deserved as it was, Australia’s victory was not without luck. The first shot was winning the toss, which Healy scored after calling heads rather than tails as usual. The team, which finished second, had won 12 of the previous 15 women’s matches at the Navi Mumbai venue, including the two earlier games in the series.
The second lucky charm came as Australia approached the target of 60 without loss in the seventh over. Healy hit Pooja Vastrakar for 38 to point where Jemimah Rodrigues appeared to take a brilliant low catch and dive forward. It was the breakthrough India needed and the team and crowd celebrated as Healy took off her helmet and made her way to the sheds.
Then the referees called for a TV review to see if the catch was clean. After nearly three minutes of inconclusive, blurry replays, the TV referee ruled Healy was out.
The fight visibly exhausted the Indian team and the large crowd of 43,523 spectators fell silent. Healy put her helmet back on and seven balls later she had reached her 16th half-century in her 150th T20I.
Healy was out shortly after, the leg before, but another 25 runs had been added in short order and although Perry was also out on the next ball, Australia were on the rise.
“It got a little tight at the end, but Tahlia and Phoebe came in and did a great job,” Mooney said.
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Before that, Sutherland, the most expensive player in the auction for the upcoming WIPL at A$364,000, is expected to meet the Delhi Capitals fans at the Dr. DY Patil Sports Academy delighted by taking two for 12 in their four overs.
Wareham took two for 24 in her four overs, but Australia’s other bowlers were unusually expensive. It was a consolation for Megan Schutt (one for 36) that her wicket, with a well-disguised slower ball for Shafali Verma, made her the leading wicket-taker in the Women’s T20 Internationals with 131.
