Australia v India T20 World Cup Report Card
Featuring polling, Spotify and pointless thrashing
Polling
Grade: D-
Heading into the final stages of this campaign, things were looking grim for Australia. The polling on Alyssa Healy’s ankle, whose time in office had been controversial, was not promising. ‘Too frail’ was the main public feedback. ‘Can’t keep inflation under control’ was the feeling from those who’d seen the swelling. ‘Requiring crutches’ opined those of a more literal bent, who were having none of this political analogy.
And so the tough decision was made for Healy to step (gingerly) aside, and allow Grace Harris to take her place at the top of the ticket alongside Beth Mooney.
The Harris/Moons campaign started with a bang, calling the India bowling ‘weird’ and getting precious social media buzz among undecided fans. But then the ticket plateaued and, by the end of the third over, the partnership remained too close to call.
Spotify
Grade: C+
Further polling revealed that this US election political analogy had been stretched about as far as it could go. Yes, there was potential for a gag about tracking errors when Georgia Wareham came and went first ball, forgetting to review a delivery that was missing leg stump. But enough already.
So let’s stop comparing the Australian innings to an election campaign and instead look at it as a Spotify playlist in Shuffle Mode. For, inspired by Harris and Wareham’s movement up the order, new captain Tahlia McGrath decided she’d also randomly pop in at number four.
This was pushy enough for Ellyse Perry to grab the team phone and ‘Add To Queue’ herself in to come in next. It took a while as the Harris/McGrath partnership turned out to be an extended mix. But with the score on 79, McGrath succumbed to a personal hat trick - dropped twice, then stumped - allowing the easy listening (Ellyse-y listening? No) of Perry to make its way to the crease.
She and Phoebe ‘brat’ Litchfield then bopped Australia to 8/151 from their twenty overs.
Pointless Thrashing
Grade: D
India began their chase in a hurry. Defeat here would put their fate in the combined hands of New Zealand and Pakistan, an unhappy resting place for anybody’s fate (this includes New Zealand and Pakistan).
Shafali Verma scored 20 (13). Jemimah Rodrigues, 16 (12).
But Harmanpreet Kaur knew that all this rapid run-scoring was unnecessary.
Earlier in the day, England had pointlessly thrashed their way to a ten wicket, ten over win over Scotland. It was the kind of victory that one might have assumed would help with net run rate. But the boffins got out their calculators, mucked about with some 38008 upside-down giggling and then determined that, despite England’s efforts, their final match against the West Indies would be effectively a quarter-final, the winner going through to the finals, the loser missing out and net run rate be damned! (Why they got so angrily adamant about the last bit remains unclear. Something to do with being told to stop with their 38008 nonsense, I guess.)
Harmanpreet therefore calmed everything down and meandered her way towards the target.
Did she get there? No. At some point, she looked up and realised she was 54* (47), but inexplicably at the non-striker’s end in the final over and her team were going to fall nine runs short.
Still, that’s not the point. The point is that she didn’t bat like a maniac. And that’s the important thing.
Also, there’s now a realistic world where both India and England miss the finals. That’d be kind of funny, no?