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India paid the price for dismal batting as they went down to England by two wickets in a thrilling group league encounter of the ICC Women’s World Twenty20, in Dharamsala, on Tuesday.
Batting first, India crawled their way to 90 for 8 in 20 overs after being put in to bat.
None of the Indian batswomen save Harmanpreet Kaur, who scored 26 off 25 ball, tried to force the pace against English bowlers.
In reply, England’s middle and lower-order survived some nervy moments before getting past the finishing line in 19 overs, with two wickets remaining.
With England needing three runs, skipper Mithali Raj dropped Anya Shrubsole off Veda Krishnamurthy's delivery in the penultimate over and the very next ball was hit past the point fielder for four, much to joy of the England dug-out.
The defeat, India's second in three matches, also threw a spanner on their chances of qualifying for the semi-finals, as the West Indies and England both have two victories in their kitty.
India have a match left against the West Indies. They have to win it to have any outside chance of qualifying, depending on other favourable results.
Mithali tried to put up a brave front at the post-match presentation ceremony.
"We are in contention. If we win against West Indies we will have to depend on other results. We realised it was difficult to score runs. We could have shown more application with the ball to pull us through."
It was batting that again let to India down as they failed to reach the three-figure mark again, having scored 96 against Pakistan.
The Indian batswomen wasted the Powerplay overs, with Mithali (20, 33 balls) failing to hit boundaries.
Only eight boundaries were hit in the 20 overs by the Indian batswomen. That went a long way in them not being able to post in the range of 110-115, a total that could have been a challenging one.
Off-spinner Heather Knight (3-15) was the most successful English bowler while Anya Shrubsole took two for 12.
While chasing, left-arm spinner Ekta Bisht (4-21) did her best to put the brakes on the opposition’s scoring, but with too few runs on the board, it was always a game that was slipping out of India's grasp.
England’s top scorer was opener Tammy Beaumont (20) while Natalie Sciver was the second-best contributor with 19 runs.
Scorecard
India
Vellaswamy Vanitha c Greenway b Knight 0
Smriti Mandhana b Shrubsole 12
Mithali Raj c Greenway b Sciver 20
Shikha Pandey c Brunt b Knight 12
Harmanpreet Kaur run out (Taylor) 26
Veda Krishnamurthy b Knight 2
Jhulan Goswami c Taylor b Shrubsole 2
Anuja Patil run out (Taylor) 13
Ekta Bisht not out 0.
Extras: (B 1, LB 1, W 1) 3
Total: (for 8 wickets; 20 overs) 90
Fall of wickets: 1-0, 2-15, 3-44, 4-47, 5-52, 6-65, 7-87, 8-90.
Bowling: Heather Knight 4-0-15-3, Katherine Brunt 4-0-24-0, Anya Shrubsole 4-0-12-2, Jenny Gunn 4-0-16-0, Rebecca Grundy 2-0-14-0, Natalie Sciver 2-0-7-1.
England
Edwards c Verma b Bisht 4
Beaumont c Patil b Kaur 20
Taylor st Verma b Kaur 16
Knight st Verma b Bisht 8
Sciver c Raj b Bisht 19
Greenway lbw b Bisht 0
Wyatt run out (Bisht) 5
Brunt not out 4
Gunn run out 7.
Extras: (B-1, LB-2, W-1) 4
Total: (8 wickets; 17.5 overs) 87
Fall of wickets: 1-10, 2-42, 3-42, 4-62, 5-62, 6-71, 7-79, 8-87.
Bowling: Patil 4-0-22-0, Goswami 2-0-10-0, Bisht 4-0-21-4, Gayakwad 4-1-10-0, Kaur 3.5-0-21-2.