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Australia all-rounder Tahila McGrath’s unbeaten 68 guided Australia women to a six-wicket win over India in the first of three ODIs. After recording a historic win over their Australian counterparts, the Indian women's team hosted Aussies for the first of three ODI matches on December 28, Thursday. Indian skipper Harmanpreet Kaur won the toss over her rival skipper Alyssa Healy and invited the visitors to bowl first.
While India delivered a stellar performance in the only Test match, their effort fell quite short in the first game of the 50-over series. After losing the Test match, the Aussie women didn’t seem to be in the mood to lose the limited-over series as well. Needless to say, Healy and her women started on a dominating note. On India’s side, apart from Jemimah Rodrigues and Pooja Vastrakar, most of the batting order collapsed early, which helped the guests to get an early dominance on Indian soil.
The hosts posted a total of 282 runs with the loss of eight wickets. In the second innings, Healy and Co. continued their dominance with the help of top and middle-order batters the guests chased the score with 21 balls in their hands. Tahila McGrath remained not out at 68 to guide the side to a six-wicket win.
After the match, Ellyse Perry, who scored 75 runs off 72 deliveries said, “It's really nice conditions to bat here and I think we have been pushed by India in whatever format we play against and I think we gotta raise the bar and we managed that really nice tonight. The total was roundabout par and particularly with the lights coming on, the ball was coming on really well. We had lots of fun over the last few days. Today the way we came out and started, the energy in our fielding was backed up by the bowling and it was nice to finish off with a win as well.”
