ICC Women's World Cup 2017: Harmanpreet Kaur muscles India to final
A magnificent unbeaten century from star batswoman Harmanpreet Kaur helped India beat Australia by 36 runs in the semifinal of the ongoing ICC Women's World Cup at the county ground on Thursday.
Chasing a daunting total of 282 in a match that was reduced to 42 overs because of rain, the defending champions were bowled out for 245 in the 40th over. Apart from Villani (75) and Alex Blackwell (90), none of the Australian batters were able to stay long at the crease. However, Blackwell did threaten to take the game away from the women in blue with some powerful hitting towards the end of the game, but the mammoth total turned out to be too much for the Aussies. Deepti Sharma was the pick of the Indian bowlers as she took three wickets. Apart from her, Jhulan Goswami and Shikha Pandey both picked two two wickets each and contributed to the side's astounding victory against the Meg Lanning led-side. Earlier, winning the toss and electing to bat in derby, which was virtually India's home ground, Harmanpreet played gem of an innings, scoring 171* to propel India to 281.