India Women vs Australia Women, Only Test

AUSW 219 & 261
INDW 406 & 75/2
India Women won by 8 wkts
PLAYER OF THE MATCH
Sneh Rana

Kaur collects the trophy and joins her teammates. Australian captain Healy can be seen clicking a picture in celebration of the Indian team. All smiles in the Indian camp. Richa Ghosh is now lifting the trophy above her head. Meanwhile, Rodriguez is taking selfies with fans. Incredible view. After beating England by 347 runs in three days, they now beat the mighty Aussies. Two big wins in a fortnight for India. This is from the encounter. The first ODI will be shifted to white-ball cricket starting Thursday (December 28). Hope you enjoyed our coverage. Until next time, goodbye from all of us here…

Harmanpreet Kaur: This is a reward for all the hard work we have put in over the years. Credit to all our support staff, especially our bowling coach and batting coach. We tried to keep things very simple. It is a reward for all the hard work and all the patience. We thought if we can play some positive cricket, it can really help us. We've been playing with this bunch for so many years and if we can mess around a bit here and there. We have put Richa, we know how he can bat, if he is there he can damage the game, that's why we put him there. We didn't want to go back to defensive cricket. We have to be in the moment. In the second innings, the partnership helped them put a decent total on the board. We showed confidence in our bowling unit and our support staff asked me to bowl and I got those important wickets at that time. Everyone in the team contributed, everyone was there to win the game for the team. Our bowling coach is telling them how to take wickets and not be defensive. That is really helping us. Firstly I would like to thank the BCCI for giving us this opportunity and secondly all our selectors - they have given us their best and have shown faith in every member. When everything works together, you get positive results. Hopefully we will get many more Test matches in the coming years. Thanks to the crowd. Everything went really well for us.

Love Rana Player of the match: It feels amazing, standing here to receive this award, a great win for our team. Nobody calls me a night watchman because I can bat. First time batting with Smriti and we were enjoying each other's company. Catch drops are part of the match. Everyone wants to contribute. I can even drop the catch, so I don't feel bad. I try to come back stronger. After many days Test match is being held in India, Test match has given a different impression. The atmosphere in the team and the support we are getting in the last 15 days is really amazing. Two home Tests and both we won. I think it will attract a lot of young people.

Alyssa Healy: What an amazing experience to come here and play Test cricket. Winning here is not easy, we found that out. We want to play a few more to make it really interesting. We probably had a bad day - the first day and the rest we showed a lot of fight. Proud of our efforts. This is our first opportunity to play red ball cricket here. We are learning on our feet here. The way the girls adapted over the four days was very impressive. Fair play to the Indian team, they have done an amazing job, especially with the bat and continue to put pressure on us. In the end put a lot of runs on us. Winning the toss on the first day, batting and then being bowled out and then probably taking too many leaks in the afternoon set us back a bit. If we had more than 300 nudges it would probably have been a different possibility. That's the beauty of the game, you execute properly over four days and we didn't. We can take some confidence from the situation here at Wankhede. We haven't played much cricket here. A practice game followed by a chance to play a four-day Test lead us to the white ball. There are still six matches left in this series. The girls really enjoyed the last four days.

Jemimah Rodriguez: Test cricket is something I always wanted to play. First to wear India's blue jersey. We didn't play much Test cricket then. From there the Whites had dreams, but nothing like a couple of Test wins. Getting two back to back half centuries. Christmas has come early. Even before the domestic season started I set a few goals and one of them was to be consistent. If I can score consistently, my team can go and win, be it Mumbai or India. I work hard, don't care too much about results, I had to be consistent with my process. Once you are consistent there, results will automatically follow. It always feels good. This time last year I was going scoreless and not having a great series. This time, I had many scores in my support and I went with confidence. They have inspired me a lot to bowl now. This wicket has turn and bounce, I am from Mumbai, if I could have contributed a bit more I said I would leave it to the bowlers.

Smriti Mandhana: It was not that difficult. When we saw the wicket before the match, we thought it was going to be a rank-turner on days three and four. But if you applied yourself, showed patience and waited for the loose ball, batting was not that difficult. Credit to all the batters. In the first innings, the way Deepti and Pooja brought us back into the game, I think that was the partnership for me that won us the match. (Gameplan for second innings) I told Shafali that we will bat exactly the way we batted in the first innings. Just watch the ball and play, nothing too fancy, nothing too defensive. Just react to the ball because we both bat best when we just react to the ball. So that was the only message we had. He was unlucky, but he started well with that cover drive.

Renuka Singh: (Message from Troy Cooley - India's bowling coach) He told me to be patient. Test cricket tests your patience. (celebration) It's a secret, won't reveal it.

Pooja Bhastrakar: Feeling very happy, history has been made as this is our first Test win against Australia. I focus a lot on my batting. Bowling yesterday was not my motivation. Deepti and I were talking that we have to bat all day

Match: INDW vs AUSW, Only Test, Australia Women tour of India, 2023-24
Date: Thursday, December 21, 2023 - Sunday, December 24, 2023
Toss: Australia Women won the toss and opt to bat
Time: 7:00 AM
Venue: Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai
Umpires: Anil Kumar Chaudhary, N Janani
Third Umpire: Jayaraman Madanagopal
Match Referee: GS Lakshmi
India Women Squad:
Playing: Smriti Mandhana, Shafali Verma, Jemimah Rodrigues, Harmanpreet Kaur (c), Yastika Bhatia (wk), Richa Ghosh, Deepti Sharma, Sneh Rana, Pooja Vastrakar, Renuka Thakur Singh, Rajeshwari Gayakwad
Bench: Shubha Satheesh, Meghna Singh, Harleen Deol, Saika Ishaque, Titas Sadhu
Support Staff:
Australia Women Squad:
Playing: Beth Mooney, Phoebe Litchfield, Ellyse Perry, Tahlia McGrath, Alyssa Healy (c & wk), Annabel Sutherland, Ashleigh Gardner, Jess Jonassen, Alana King, Kim Garth, Lauren Cheatle
Bench: Darcie Brown, Megan Schutt, Heather Graham, Georgia Wareham