IND-W vs NZ-W

That will be curtains from the 4th match of the Women's T20 World Cup. We have another double header tomorrow, join us for that one. This is Dwaipayan Mukherjee, signing off alongside my hard-working colleague, Pradeep. We will see you soon! 

Sophie Devine (New Zealand captain) : I am incredibly proud of what we have achieved today, one have been speaking about our recent losses and for us to come out and play a formidable side like India and defeat them in this manner is something that we will cherish. In the powerplay, I think the starts that we have been getting from Georgia and Bates always keeps us in a good stead and even the batters who come in the lower middle order like Halliday. They might not get many runs but those are very crucial runs for us. I believe that 150 was par. I am looking forward to the challenge against Australia, they are familiar foes and we have also played a lot in recent weeks so we need to keep our plans in place for that contest. 

Harmanpreet Kaur (India captain): We didn't play our best cricket today, but going forward we have to think and improve. Every game is important from here on, will try to play our best cricket. We created chances, it wasn't like we didn't, but it didn't go our way. It's part of the game, they played better cricket than us, our bowlers did well. We need to work on our fielding, we can't afford to make mistakes having said that. Not at all, we have chased 160 or 170 many times, the pitch wasn't conducive, we thought we gave 20 to 30 runs more. We kept losing wickets, we need to learn from it and come back better. We pulled things back well with the ball, that's a positive I'll take from here. This wasn't the start we were expecting, but we need to bounce back.

Sophie Devine is the Player of the Match! Here's what she has to say: I thought the platform that Georgia and Suzie set the tone for us there. We spoken at length as a batting unit to capitalize on overs between 7 to 12, but we knew if we had slowed down, it would've been tough. Halliday was brilliant, Green ran between the wickets was good. It was tough wicket, the pace was off, tried to muscle, was a bit scratchy to start but needed to build the tempo and was happy to contribute to get to the competitive total. It's been great, this group has worked hard in the past six months and have got the reward tonight.

New Zealand (160 for 4) have defeated India (102 all out in 19 overs) by 58 runs

Rosemary Mair - 4/19 | Lea Tahuhu - 3/15
Harmanpreet Kaur - 15 (14) | Jemimah Rodrigues - 13 (11)

Biggest victory of margin for New Zealand against India. Only the 3rd time when India have been bowled out in a T20 World Cup game.

The first ball of the chase, similar to how the first ball of the match was, went to meet the boundary ropes as Mandhana ensured a flying start in the opening over for the 2023 T20 WC semi-finalists. Little did the Indian fans know that it would be among the last moments of the match where India would be competitive. 

Shafali Verma departed early. It was slow going when Harmanpreet and Mandhana were together. There was deafening silence when Mandhana was dismissed in the penultimate over of the powerplay which began the downward spiral of the Indian batting group. 

Harmanpreet got 103 from 51 balls against the same opposition back in 2018 in Guyana. In that match, even Jemimah Rodriguez scored 59 runs from 45 balls and India needed something of that magnitude. Alas! It did not happen. The Indian skipper was trapped in front of the stumps in the final over of the field restrictions to become the 3rd wicket to fall. 

India brought up their team fifty, after losing 3 wickets in the 8th over. To put things in perspective, New Zealand had got there in the 6th over, without any loss when they were batting. At the halfway point of the chase, 4 Indian wickets had gone down and it could have been much worse had Halliday grabbed the opportunity to send back Deepti Sharma as well in the 10th over. 

This has been very impressive work from New Zealand. They tightened the screws in this game. They ensured that they made regular inroads into the batting order of their opponents. Multiple soft dismissals happened. That never allowed India to even come close to threatening the bowling in this chase. Brilliant changes of length and pace were on display and we also saw yorkers that were executed perfectly. All of this  kept compounding the problems for India. 

Eden Carson became the first bowler from her side to complete their full quota of 4 overs - her efforts upfront really dented the Indian chances in the initial stages of the innings as she closed out on her work with 2 wickets in her bag. Lea Tahuhu picked up wickets in each of her first 3 overs as New Zealand kept landing one blow after the other in what has been a dominating victory for the finalists from the first 2 editions of the Women's T20 World Cup. 

When Shreyanka Patil reverse swept Amelia Kerr in the beginning of the 18th over, it was only the 7th boundary of the innings for India - with no sixes. Such was the state of affairs in a chase where they needed more to get close to 160. They would be keen on returning to the drawing board as they face arch rivals Pakistan on Sunday. 

Presentations to follow soon! 

18.6 Rosemary Mair to Renuka Thakur, OUT! SLICED STRAIGHT TO BACKWARD POINT AND TAKEN! It's all over, clinical win from the White Ferns as they kick off their T20 World Cup campaign with an emphatic win against India. Length delivery outside the off-stump, Thakur looks to drive but the outside edge went straight into the hands of Devine who fittingly takes the catch to close the game here.

18.5 Rosemary Mair to Shreyanka Patil, OUT! ANOTHER ONE UP IN THE AIR AND TAKEN! Penfold who came in as substitute makes no mistake. Length delivery on the off-stump, Patil hits it straight up in the air. Penfold settles under it at mid-off and pouches it.

18.2 Rosemary Mair to Shreyanka Patil, OH DEAR! Juggling act by Plimmer but spills it eventually. Length delivery, just outside the off-stump. Patil skies it to backward point. Plimmer backtracks, juggles four times and then makes a meal of it.

18.1 Rosemary Mair to Asha Sobhana, pace off, length delivery on the leg-stump. Asha backs away and lifts it past mid-wicket for only a single.

18 overs are done. India have not reached 100 yet. They have lost 8 wickets. It has been a forgetful day.

Rosemary Mair [3.0-0-16-2] is back into the attack

17.6 Amelia Kerr to Shreyanka Patil, BIG APPEALS FOR LBW, NOT GIVEN! Kerr goes down on one knee pleading, umpire is unmoved. Devine doesn't want to review it. Good length on the middle and leg, Patil misses this one with the reverse sweep as it thuds on the pad.

17.5 Amelia Kerr to Shreyanka Patil, short and angled into the batter, Patil was late again with the swipe, misses and gets pinged on the pad.

17.4 Amelia Kerr to Shreyanka Patil, OH! Can't beat the fielder in the ring at short fine-leg. Length delivery on the leg-stump, Patil helps it with the sweep, but went straight to the fielder.

17.3 Amelia Kerr to Shreyanka Patil, OH! Drops it short on the leg-stump, Patil rocks back to swipe but gets rushed and misses, pings on the pad.

17.2 Amelia Kerr to Shreyanka Patil, FOUR! Now that is a good shot from Patil. Length delivery on the off-stump, Patil absolutely nails the reverse sweep, went straight through the hands of the backward point fielder and finds the ropes.