Indian Skipper Harmanpreet Kaur was emotional and tearful during the post-match presentation after the heartbreaking defeat from Australia in the semi-finals of the ICC Women’s T20 World cup at Cape Town. Australia qualified for the Women T20 World Cup final seventh time by defeating India by 5 runs in their first semi-final of the tournament.
Australia will either face England or host South Africa in the finals.
Harmanpreet scored 52 off 34 balls in the semi-final of the Women T20 World Cup 2023 at Cape Town. Harmanpreet was the top scorer in the game but it went in vain when she was run-out while scoring with power hitter Jemimah Rodrigues in a bizarre fashion which changed the game against India.
Harmanpreet in the post match presentation said that it was the most unlucky moment for the team when she was run-out while partnering with Jemimah Rodrigues and both scoring well. It wasn’t expected by her but she is happy the way the women played the game. It was an unfortunate run-out and according to Harmanpreet India could have won an over earlier if she would have stayed in the game and her bat did not get stuck on the wicket.
Even after that Deepti and Richa were there to balance out the loss but the team played 7-8 dot balls in the middle which turned the momentum of the match in the favour of Australia.
India was chasing Australia’s score of 172-4 in the 20 over game. India lost 3 wickets at 28 runs before Harmanpreet and Rodrigues gave a tough fight to win. Harman played for 52 runs from 34 balls whereas Rodrigues scored good 43 runs off 24 balls.
Ashleigh Gardner had bagged two wickets and scored 31 runs from 18 balls to be named the Player of the Match.
Harmanpreet added in her speech that she believed to have a good batting lineup after the loss of an early wicket and she praised Jemi for her performance. Jemi brought the momentum in the match that was sought for and she was happy with her performance. She said that though they did not play on their strength they were there in the semi-finals. Harman also mentioned that they should have taken the missed easy catches to win but they can only learn from these lessons and not repeat these mistakes in future.