The Indian women’s cricket team played their hearts out but couldn’t hold their nerve as they lost in the summit clash of the World Cup to three-time champions England in a nail-biting contest at Lords on Sunday.
A mini collapse saw the last four wickets falling for 19 runs. The English were also lucky with some misfields and dropped catches but that did not cost them the match.
India’s Punam Raut scored an impressive 86 off 115 deliveries and kept Indian in the hunt, before she was dismissed by Shrubsole.
A breezy knock by Veda Krishnamurthy (35 off 34) kept the Indians in the game.
Harmanpreet Kaur also played an important knock of 51 runs off 80 balls carrying on from her stellar performance against the Aussies in the semifinals.
Much of India’s innings was built thanks to the stable partnership of 95 between Poonam Raut and Harmanpreet Kaur after veteran pacer Jhulan Goswami’s 3/23 had limited the home side to 228/7 at the end of the allotted 50 overs.
India needed a little less than run a ball in the last 10 overs with Raut still at the crease.
Shrubsole was the pick of the English bowlers picking up six wickets at a little over five runs per over. Spinner Alex Hartley also picked up a couple of wickets.
The other notable performer in the match was Indian spinner Poonam Yadav who took two wickets for 36.
India had a shaky start with opener Smriti Mandhana being sent back for a duck in the second over of the innings.
Skipper Mithali Raj was run out after she made an apparently half-hearted attempt to steal a single off the first ball of the 13th over.
India then stuck to the plan of keeping their wickets in hand and taking minimum risks. However, panic set in, in the final overs with wickets falling in a heap.
Earlier in the day, Natalie Sciver (51), Sarah Taylor (45) and Katherine Brunt (34) were the major contributors for England in their batting effort.
It was a case of second time unlucky for Mithali Raj as she had led the team to the World Cup final in 2005 as well where they had lost to Australia.