Harmanpreet's India lose series opener, but next game is 'very important'

India Women's Harmanpreet Kaur feels her team were a few runs short with the bat in their eight-wicket loss in the series-opening clash against Australia Women at the Maharaja Yadavindra Singh International Cricket Stadium in New Chandigarh. Opting to bat first, the hosts posted 281/7 on the board.

Kaur complimented the bowlers' efforts and the opposition's brand of cricket. She expressed that she was looking forward to the next match and said that the team will try to imbibe all the positives from this match to the upcoming encounter on Wednesday, September 17, a game which will be played at the same venue

"We were 20-30 runs short with the bat, our bowlers tried to create opportunities but unfortunately, we could not capitalise on those opportunities. They played really good cricket. But the next game is very important and we want to stay positive, looking forward to it. Both innings, the pitch played better, but some more positive batting and adding 20-30 more runs, taking our chances might have made a huge difference. We will think and analyse the pitch before the next game. We will try with whatever we have in our side, that was our best combination," stated Kaur during the post-match presentation ceremony.

Speaking of how the match panned out, IND-W started off quite well. Pratika Rawal (64 off 96) and Smriti Mandhana (58 off 63) put on 114 for the first wicket. Harleen Deol also played a handy 57-ball 54-run knock. Kaur did not have a particularly memorable outing with the bat. As many as the Australians used eight bowlers. Alana King was the most economical out of them.

The Australians started off quite positively too. Ellyse Perry arrived in the middle after the fall of Alyssa Healy (27 off 23), however, she unfortunately got retired hurt after adding 30 off 38. Phoebe Litchfield (88 off 80) was the second wicket to fall. Beth Mooney (77* off 74) and Annabel Sutherland (54* off 51) finished off the job by forging together an unbeaten 116-run partnership, taking just 104 balls.