Toss Australia chose to bat vs India
Alyssa Healy arrived on crutches. Pooja Vastrakar, with a heavily strapped right thigh, underwent a fitness test and passed. Memories of India’s 17-run win over Australia in the opening game of the 2020 T20 World Cup and the 48-run triumph at the 2018 tournament were conjured up alongside the ever-present echoes of Australia’s six titles. The marquee clash of Group A is here, and India will chase in front of a sizable crowd, with everything to play for.
This is a must-win match for India and also a must-up-the-run-rate encounter.
Australia’s stand-in captain Tahlia McGrath decided to bat first on a pitch which she felt looked better than the surfaces they have played on in Sharjah before and on which England chased 113 in ten overs earlier in the day. Australia are without Healy and Tayla Vlaeminck, who has been ruled out of the event with a dislocated right shoulder and made two forced changes as a result. Allrounder Grace Harris, who sat out the Pakistan match is back into the XI and was carded to open with Beth Mooney while Darcie Brown replaced Vlaeminck.
India made two changes to the team that beat Sri Lanka and brought in Vastrakar, who has recovered from a hamstring injury, in place of S Sajana. The second was a late swap with left-arm spinner Radha Yadav replacing legspinner S Asha after the latter seemed to injure herself during the warm-up.
Harmanpreer Kaur was listed at No.3 and would have a big role to play in the chase. She, and her team, have an advantage no other team has had: a training session at Sharjah ahead of the match, including an open nets session.
This is India’s first, and only, visit to Sharjah at the tournament. They have played their three previous group matches in Dubai which is also where they will be if they qualify for the semi-finals. After India’s opening defeat to New Zealand, and slow-go in the chase against Pakistan, India sit second in the group behind Australia. Three big wins have put the defending champions on top of the pool with an enviable net run-rate of 2.786 and they are all but into the knockouts.
India: 1 Shafali Verma, 2 Smriti Mandhana, 3 Harmanpreet Kaur (capt), 4 Jemimah Rodrigues, 5 Richa Ghosh (wk), 6 Deepti Sharma, 7 Pooja Vastrakar, 8 Arundhati Reddy, 9 Shreyanka Patil, 10 Radha Yadav, 11 Renuka Singh
Australia: 1 Beth Mooney (wk), 2 Grace Harris , 3 Ellyse Perry, 4 Ashleigh Gardner, 5 Phoebe Litchfield, 6 Tahlia McGrath (capt), 7 Georgia Wareham, 8 Annabel Sutherland, 9 Sophie Molineux, 10 Megan Schutt, 11 Darcie Brown
