It’s always a spiced up contest when it’s a 3-way tie in a triangular series and that is exactly the case in the Commonwealth Bank Tri-Series between 3 solid cricket playing nations like India, England & home team Australia battle it out just before the all-important world cup commences come 21st February.
The carnival moved to a new venue in Junction Oval, Melbourne as India locked horns against England for the second time in the series. The last time these two sides met, it was India who ended on the winning side and England had a score to settle.
On a far better batting surface than the Manuka Oval, Canberra, England decided to put India in to bat and the decision was a perfect one as India lost a cluster of wickets early on. While the only positive outcome was the innings of Smriti Mandhana who scored 45 off 40 with 7 boundaries and a maximum, the others just didn’t take the onus of helping the opener to build a partnership and carry the Indian innings through to a respectable target so that the bowlers could get something to bowl at. Anya Shrubsole made a return to this English attack and brought back the memories of the 2017 World Cup final when she had completely dismantled the Indian side at the latter part of the innings. She returned with figures of 4-0-31-3 and completely dominated with the ball which helped England restrict the Indian side to a mediocre score of 123-6 after 20 overs.
Out of 70 T20I Matches that Natalie Sciver has played for @englandcricket, she has scored 5 Half-Centuries so far.
68* vs Aus (20 March 2018)
50 vs Aus (31 March 2018)
59 vs NZ (23 June 2018)
52* vs Ind (22 Nov 2018)
50 vs Ind (07 Feb 2020)#IndvEng #EngvInd pic.twitter.com/lHZMf73jzK— Female Cricket (@imfemalecricket) February 7, 2020
England, on the other hand, were always ahead of the eight ball as they never looked out of reach of the target with Nat Sciver being the catalyst in the chase getting to a half-century in 37 deliveries and ensuring that England chase the target down with 7 balls to spare and win the game by 4 wickets. Rajeshwari Gayakwad was the at her best again with the ball picking up 3 wickets in her 4 overs giving away just 23 runs but there were not enough runs on the board which meant that India lost their second consecutive game of the series.
Lot of work needs to be done for Indian batters ahead of the most-important @T20WorldCup. Luckily, the bowling unit has done really well. Your thoughts? #IndvEng #EngvInd pic.twitter.com/zHnnwR14rE
— Female Cricket (@imfemalecricket) February 7, 2020
This loss means that England has made a stronghold for themselves to reach in the finals of this Tri-Series and India are now left with a do or die game against a strong looking Australian outfit against whom they have already lost a game last week.
So India plays Australia on Saturday, Feb 8 which should be a crunch contest as Australia will look to seal the deal with a victory and march on to the finals.
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