'Fair Play to Indian Side': Alyssa Healy Lauds Harmanpreet Kaur and Co., Then Turns Photographer

The Indian women’s cricket team cruised to their first-ever win against Australia in Test cricket Sunday, beating the visitors by eight wickets in a one-off match at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai.

For India’s women, it was their first Test victory against Australia after 11 attempts since 1977. It follows India’s victory against England last week, also in Mumbai.

“Not easy to win over here, we found that out. We’d love to play a couple more to make it really interesting,”

Australia captain Alyssa Healy said after the match.

India dominated play in the four-day match at the Wankhede Stadium, smashing 406 runs in the first innings to take a 187-run lead.

On the final day, Australia knocked out 261, with India’s bowlers earning five wickets for just 28 runs, including right arm offbreak Sneh Rana — later awarded player of the match — taking two wickets in two balls.

Set a target of 75, India’s skipper Harmanpreet Kaur’s team chased down the runs in dramatic play in just under 19 overs for two wickets.

“We probably had one bad day – the first day and rest of the time we showed a lot of fight. Proud of our effort. It’s our first opportunity to play red-ball cricket over here. We are learning on our feet out here. The way that the girls continued to adapt throughout the four days, it was super impressive,” Healy said.

“Fair play to the Indian side, they did an amazing job continuing to put pressure on us in particular with the bat. Ultimately put too many runs on us. Winning the toss, batting and then getting bowled out on that first day and then probably leaking too many in the afternoon put us on the back foot a little bit. If we had nudged over 300, it would have probably been a different prospect. That’s the beauty of the game, you got execute right through the four days and we weren’t able to do that,” she added.

Picture Perfect

Australia captain Alyssa Healy was also turned photographer as she was spotted clicking pictures of the triumphant Indian side with the trophy.

She added that there are more matches left in their tour, promising that Australia will come back hard.

“The opportunity to play a practice game and then a four-day Test puts us in good stead leading into the white-ball. Still six games left in this series. The girls have really enjoyed the last four days,” she said.

(With inputs from Agencies)