ADELAIDE, Feb 20: India will need their batting big guns to fire collectively against an experienced Australian bowling group in the third and final women’s T20 International to seal a historic maiden series triumph Down Under, here on Saturday.
Despite registering a few victories in the past, the Indian women are yet to score a bilateral series win in Australia across all three formats.
To change that script, India need a better batting effort here and it starts from openers Smriti Mandhana and Shafali Verma.
Both Smriti and Shafali got starts but failed to kick on, impeding India’s relatively easy-looking chase of 164 in the second match.
The veteran Aussie trio of Kim Garth, Annabel Sutherland and Sophie Molineux exploited that opening, getting rid of five Indian batters for a mere seven runs to wreck the chase.
But the Adelaide pitch offers a lot more trueness than its counterpart at Canberra, and the Indian batters should be able to trust their pick-up shots here.
An excellent outfield also adds value to the drive here.
Skipper Harmanpreet Kaur, Jemimah Rodrigues and Richa Ghosh love the ball coming on to the bat, and they can expect some assistance here.
However, the smooth nature of the ground also puts an onus on Indian pacers — Renuka Singh, Arundhati Reddy, Kranti Goud and Amanjot Kaur — to be steady in their lines, as the Aussie batters can quite ruthlessly exploit any slack.
In that context, no one is a bigger threat than young and prolific Georgia Voll, who has seamlessly taken over the opening role from the now-retired Meg Lanning and Alyssa Healy.
Those are massive shoes to fill, but the 22-year-old has been nothing less than remarkable so far.
The Indian pacers will have to stop Voll in her tracks, and the spinners — Deepti Sharma and Sree Charani — too need to chip in during the middle overs.
It is mandatory to keep the range-hitters Sutherland and Ash Gardner and the innovative Phoebe Litchfield quiet post the Powerplay segment.
TEAMS
India:
Harmanpreet Kaur (c), Smriti Mandhana, Bharti Fulmali, Kranti Gaud, Richa Ghosh (wk), Gunalan Kamalini, Amanjot Kaur, Shreyanka Patil, Sneh Rana, Arundhati Reddy, Renuka Singh, Jemimah Rodrigues, Shafali Verma, Deepti Sharma, Shree Charani, Vaishnavi Sharma.
Australia:
Sophie Molineux (c), Tahlia McGrath, Darcie Brown, Nicola Carey, Kim Garth, Grace Harris, Phoebe Litchfield, Beth Mooney, Ellyse Perry, Megan Schutt, Annabel Sutherland, Georgia Voll, Georgia Wareham.
Match starts at 1.45 pm IST
