Bristol T20: England beat India by 26 runs, series level 1-1; Harmanpreet’s ‘retire-out’ bet backfires

In the second T20 match played in Bristol, England women’s team has defeated the Indian team by 26 runs. With this victory, this three-match T20 series now stands at an exciting tie of 1-1. Batting first in the match, the English team had set a challenging target of 169 runs for India. In reply, the Indian team, which came out to chase the runs, could not handle the pressure and could score only 142 runs at the loss of 9 wickets in the stipulated 20 overs. Harmanpreet’s ‘retire-out’ move backfired. The biggest turning point of this match and the topic of discussion was a unique decision of captain Harmanpreet Kaur. During the innings, Yastika Bhatia was struggling a bit at the crease and was not able to connect the ball properly. In such a situation, the team management took a big risk and decided to recall Yastika i.e. ‘retire out’, so that in-form Jemimah Rodrigues could be sent to the crease in her place and the run rate could be increased. After the defeat, captain Harmanpreet himself admitted that this strategy was a complete failure. Jemima could not live up to the expectations and returned to the pavilion after scoring only 1 run. This move, which was rarely seen on the cricket field, instead proved to be suicidal for Team India. The weakness of the middle order came to the fore before the World Cup. If seen from the perspective of the upcoming T20 World Cup, this defeat is like a big wake-up call for the Indian team. The top order made a decent start in the match, but the middle order completely collapsed like a house of cards. Smriti Mandhana: 32 runs in 25 balls Yastika Bhatia: 33 runs in 36 balls Harmanpreet Kaur: 28 runs in 22 balls Shefali Verma: 22 runs in 14 balls Apart from these four, no other batsman of Team India could even touch double figures. The cheap dismissal of batsmen like Jemimah Rodrigues (1 run), Richa Ghosh (8 runs), Deepti Sharma (2 runs) and Shreyanka Patil (6 runs) made it clear that our middle order disintegrates under pressure. This weakness can prove costly for the team in the World Cup. Freya Camp became the real star of England’s victory. Earlier, the Indian bowlers had made a great start in the match. Shri Charani bowled brilliantly and took 3 wickets and troubled England’s top order. Star players like Sophie Dunkley (10 runs), Danni Wyatt, Amy Jones and Heather Knight failed to play big innings. England had lost 5 wickets for 126 runs and it seemed that India had taken control of the match. But after this, Freya Camp, who came on the field, single-handedly turned the tables. He hit the Indian bowlers with fours and sixes and played an unbeaten inning of 39 runs in just 13 balls and took the team’s score to 168. After this, he also did wonders in bowling and took 2 valuable wickets for just 15 runs, for which he is being considered the biggest star of the match.