Mumbai: When it looked England would easily rope in the match in their favour after dismissing Australia for a paltry 147, Australia fought back hard to beat the defending champions by two runs in the ICC Super Six encounter at Brabourne Stadium here on Friday.
Post-match, player of the match Lisa Sthalekar said: “Look, I think credit needs to go to both teams who played today. England played really well, especially their bowlers – Anya Shrubsole was hooping them in and that ball she got Jess Cameron out on was spectacular. The conditions here really help to get the ball to swing and it worked in our favour today.
“I think obviously 147 runs is not enough for a wicket like that and so I always felt that it would go down the wire. We needed to pick up early wickets, our seamers did a wonderful job at the start. That gave them a few more overs to settle in and get used to the wicket that prolonged the match a little bit.
“Tight finishes allow the spectators to get into the game. As players you don’t like it too tight. With the score that we put on board it was always going to be tight. It was great to see some of our younger players really stepping up.”
Charlotte Edwards was disappointed with the loss but said the side’s previous loss in the ICC WT20 finals in Sri Lanka last year was not on the side’s mind ahead of the game: “No I don’t think it affected us psychologically today. We were disappointed with that but we had a great record coming in to today’s event, it’s just disappointing that we couldn’t go over the line today.
“We were delighted with the way we bowled with Shrubsole and (Katherine) Brunt again, Colvin again, all the bowlers bowled fantastically and we will take 147 anytime against Australia we should have got those runs. It didn’t have anything to do with the wicket and to be fair we just didn’t capitalise on some of our opportunities plus it was our poor shot selection at times.”
Edwards added she had no concerns about her middle-order failing to fire: “I think individually they have all stood up at times collectively maybe we haven’t batted as well. I think India is the only game we have collectively batted as would have liked to. Yes our bowling is brilliant, our batting is something that we need to improve on but I am not worried.
“Sarah Taylor hasn’t scored runs in the competition so far but she is dangerous and hopefully there are big things to come from her so I am not too concerned. I think it’s a case of working hard and doing well against South Africa. We have to come out strong I think it’s going to help our batting in a way. I think net run rate is going to play a big part now.”
By Indian Sports News Network