AUSW vs INDW 3rd Match, AUSW vs INDW 2021

And that is it! Brute finish to the second innings, but it was the Aussies who pulled off a remarkable, clinical win over India. That is it. After 40 overs of play, after 284 runs being scored - it is Meg Lanning's Southern Stars who have thumped Harmanpreet Kaur's Women in Blue. The visitors were never down and out, in the entire series, but this Australian outfit were just one-step ahead of the opposition. 

This Indian chase was a small brief of this multi-format series. The visiting team had a task in hand, a task of 150 runs to chase down. A dashing Indian line-up took the challenge but started taking the attack to the hosts. Despite losing Shafali early in the chase, Smriti Mandhana never lost hope and showcased her oomphing class. Just like she did in her entire series, SM batted in her own class - went down the track to the spinner, drove and pulled the fast bowlers. 

Mandhana brought up another half-century in this tour but skied one straight to sweeper after reaching the milestone. And just in this entire series, Mandhana's dismissal initiated a batting collapse. Rodrigues carved to long-off while accelerating, skipper Kaur was timed the drive perfectly to extra covers. Vastrakar found her furniture disturbed. While Harleen was run out by a countrymile. In the 20th over, Richa Ghosh displayed some fireworks in the back end to reduce the margin of defeat to only 14 runs.

One should stand up and applaud this Indian cricket team, led by Mithali Raj and Harmanpreet Kaur, who have some extraordinary performances in both the ODI and Test series, also in the T20Is as well. Alas, this tour ends with the score line of 11-5 in the favour of Australia.

Despite this daunting scoreline, the Indian team management have found some future flag bearers in Pooja Vastrakar, Meghna Singh, Renuka Singh, Yastika Bhatia, and Richa Ghosh. Apart from that, we saw some astounding performances. We saw that Shikha Pandey nip backer from the sixth-seventh stump line to the top of off. We also witnessed Mandhana scoring her maiden Test Hundred, that too against Pink Ball. We also saw a heart-breaking moment when Jhulan Goswami bowled a no-ball that allowed Australia to win the second ODI. But the Nadia Express redeemed herself by scoring the match-winning boundary, in the last game, to break Australia's 26 ODI-long winning streak. We also witnessed some unparalleled new-ball spell by the Indian pacer, especially that by Meghna Singh by the second new Pink Ball on the fourth day.

This series might have seen play get cut short but we witnessed a long but exceptional multi-format series, where both Australia and India poured their heart and souls on-field.