Meg Lanning introduced Ashleigh Gardner right away instead of starting with pace, knowing full well about India batters' recent struggle🔯 with spin bowling.
Shafali Verma (9), who had an 'okay' ou🐷ting while fielding, startedཧ well against Gardner, but was dismissed in the subsequent over by Megan Schutt off an LBW.
India's bad start turned worse when Gardner dismissed Smriti Mandhana for 2, 🥂her fourth instance of getting the opener's scalp in T20Is, the scoreboard reading 15-2.
Jemimah Rodrigues came in and scored fours from two consecutive delive𝓀ries easing some of the pressure.
A mix-up between Rodrigues and Yastika Bha﷽tia saw the latter get run out for 4, sounding theﷺ alarm for the batters to come.
Har♔manpreet Kaur, who was unsure of starting the match, started her batting with a textbook cover drive for four. The two experienced players being in the middle was what India needed, as they struck the occasional bo♎undaries while rotating the strike on good balls.
Harmanpree🎃t took on Jess Jonassen, hitting the first six of 🌼the innings over long-on.
India's total was much better in the powerplay as compared to the previous games, which saw the scoreboard read 59 runs despite 💖losing three wickets after 6 overs.
The pair were now managing to score a boundary per over at least, accompanied by singles and doubles, with the required run ꧂rate being just over 8.
Harmanpreet and Rodrigues brought up their 50-run partnership after despite ꦛIndia losﷺing early wickets.
Rodrigues, especially, turned it on for India, scoring 13 runs off Georgia Wa🀅reham taking the score to 93-3 after 10 overs.
