Key events
5th over: Australia 35-0 (Voll 27, Mooney 8)
Amanjot Kaur bowls her first over, coming into the team for the first time this series. Voll misjudges the length first up and plays it up in the air, but it’s well short of the field. The next ball is right in her zone and she joyfully slaps it over the field for four, before getting a leading edge and nearly ending up caught and bowled. That’s followed by a powerful straight drive for four – it’s like she’s a different player every second ball in this over!
4th over: Australia 26-0 (Voll 18, Mooney 8)
Kranti comes back for her second over and her first ball is a good one, full and straight and Mooney can only defend it. Mooney tries to be more aggressive on the second ball, with a straight drive, but it can’t beat the field. She finds a single next ball to release the pressure somewhat, but it’s good bowling from Kranti. Voll manages to get around a full ball to pull it to the boundary for four, but Kranti tightens up her line in a good comeback ball.
3rd over: Australia 20-0 (Voll 13, Mooney 7)
Renuka resumes and immediately Voll finds the first boundary of the night, opening the face of the bat and working it to the boundary for four. A single next ball that she doesn’t quite middle, but it goes over the field and falls safely to bring Mooney back on strike. She gets in on the fun, coming down the pitch to meet the ball and driving it past long off for four. Next ball she pulls away aggressively, but there’s a fielder on the boundary to restrict her to a single. Voll flirts with the field again, but lifts it high enough to come away with two runs – a great over for Australia.
2nd over: Australia 8-0 (Voll 6, Mooney 2)
Kranti begins her first over with two dots to Voll, before catching the edge, but it falls safely and Voll scampers through for one. Mooney keeps the momentum going with another single, but boundaries are not easy to come by for the openers just yet. Voll lifts one up and over the field for the first two of the match and finishes the over with a single.
1st over: Australia 3-0 (Voll 2, Mooney 1)
Renuka Singh gets us underway and Voll immediately finds a single to rotate the strike and get herself off the mark. Mooney plays her first ball very cautiously, showing the full face of the bat and defending it back to the bowler, before a more flamboyant drive to deep point for a single. Voll again rotates the strike and Mooney finishes with caution to make a strong first over for Renuka.
The teams are on the field now and we’re just about ready to get underway!
If you missed Sunday’s rain-affected match and want a quick catch up before we begin, you can find the live blog of that match right here:
Australia brings an unchanged line up into this match, obviously wanting to give the team a chance to bounce back after a shortened match the other night. India have made one change, with Amanjot Kaur coming in for Shreyanka Patil. However, the Fox commentary team have Patil listed in an unchanged line up, so there may be some confusion here. I’m bringing you the team as listed by Cricket Australia, but will update you if I become aware of any changes!
India XI
1. Smriti Mandhana
2. Shafali Verma
3. Jemimah Rodrigues
4. Harmanpreet Kaur
5. Richa Ghosh
6. Deepti Sharma
7. Arundhati Reddy
8. Kranti Gaud
9. Sree Charani
10. Renuka Singh Thakur
11. Amanjot Kaur
Australia XI
1. Beth Mooney (wk)
2. Georgia Voll
3. Phoebe Litchfield
4. Ellyse Perry
5. Ash Gardner (vc)
6. Georgia Wareham
7. Annabel Sutherland
8. Nicola Carey
9. Sophie Molineux (c)
10. Kim Garth
11. Darcie Brown
India won the toss and elected to field
Clearly India liked the way things played out for them after fielding first in the first T20, so they’re going to do it again!
Preamble
Megan Maurice
Hello and welcome to the second T20 of the series and the second match of the “Sophie Molineux era” for Australia. You may remember that the first match didn’t go swimmingly for the new captain (though swimming was certainly on the cards after a huge downpour cut the match short).
Australia could not manage to build a partnership and lost wickets with alarming regularity, putting on a total well short of par and without batting their full complement of overs. As a result, India were easily able to steer themselves ahead of DLS par before the rain hit and walked away with the first win of the series.
In contrast, today’s weather in our nation’s capital, where we lay our scene, is bright and rain-free, so both teams will need to be prepared to play a full match. For India, it will simply be about continuing their momentum – their bowling and fielding were excellent on Sunday – as well as getting the time to bat out a full innings and see what kind of total they are capable of amassing.
Australia will be looking to bounce back, and with a long line up of batters who all ended up with uncharacteristically low scores on Sunday, they are certainly capable of doing so.
Whatever happens, it’s sure to be a cracker of a match, so let’s get into it!