By Madhav Dada 
Australia Women are currently touring India and a 5-match T20I Series has just concluded with Australia Women lifting the trophy after their 4-1 win over India Women in the series.
In the fifth and last match of the T20I Series that was played in Brabourne Stadium, Mumbai, India Women won the toss and elected to field first.
Australia Women who were invited to bat first in the game made 196 runs at the loss of 4 wickets in the first inning with Ashleigh Gardner and Grace Harris leading the team’s batting from the front. While Ashleigh made 66 runs off 32 balls, Grace Harris also played a fiery inning of 64 runs off 35 balls.
Anjali Sarvani, Deepti Sharma, Shafali Verma and Devika Vaidya took a wicket each for India Women in the game. India Women conceded 9 extras to Australia Women while bowling in the game.
After an early dismissal of Smriti Mandhana and Shafali Verma, India tried to establish stability in the game, but it didn’t happen long for them. With Smriti gone when India Women had 4 runs on the board, Shafali Verma was out when they had 24 total runs on board at that time. With India losing 7 wickets at just 88 runs, the team tried to establish momentum, but it got broken down with Anjali Sarvani losing her wicket when India Women had 130 runs on board. At the end of 20 overs, India Women lost all of their wickets having 142 runs on board and lost to Australia Women by 54 runs.
Heather Graham took an impressive 4 wickets for Australia Women with only 12 balls delivered by her in the game. She had an economy of 4.00 in the game. Ashleigh Gardner took 2 wickets in the game with Darcie Brown, Tahlia McGarth and Annabel Sutherland picking a wicket each in the game. Australia Women conceded 8 extras to India Women while bowling in the game.
Ashleigh Gardner became the player of the match for her 66*(32) in batting, 2/20 in bowling and 2 catches in the match. She also became the player of the series. She made a total of 115 runs and has taken 7 wickets in the series.
Australia Women won the 5-match T20I Series 4-1 to lift the trophy.
Zainab Shafiq