India captain Harmanpreet Kaur blamed her batter’s inability to rotate strike for the 21-run defeat to Australia in the third women’s T20I in Mumbai on Wednesday. Harmanpreet pointed out that her team fancied their chances of chasing down 173, but the host’s batters played too many dot balls, limiting them to 151 for 7. Australia beat India by 21 runs in the third women’s T20 International to take a 2-1 lead in the five-match series on Wednesday. Invited to bat, Ellyse Perry smashed 75 off 47 balls while Grace Harris clobbered 41 off just 18 balls as the Australian Women scored a decent 172 for 5.

Devika Vaidya, Renuka Thakur, Anjali Sarvani and Deepti Sharma took two wickets apiece. Chasing 173 for a win, India could only score 151 for 7 in 20 overs. Shafali Verma top-scored with 52 while captain Harmanpreet Kaur made 37. ”Yes, definitely, getting them on 170-odd runs, we really thought we were in with a chance,” Harmanpreet said at the post-match presentation. ”But I think there were few overs where we scored less than 6 overs, that cost us. We had a lot of dot balls after hitting the boundary, we need to rotate the strike, but that didn’t happen.

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Dot balls, lack of boundaries: Ellyse Perry on India women’s loss

”One of us wanted to stay till the end, but we had to hit boundaries and sometimes you lose wickets when you play like that. We have a deep batting line-up now so it’s not like we have to keep thinking about someone playing till the end.” She said she was happy for the likes of Anjali Sarvani and Renuka Singh. ”Yes definitely, the way they are taking responsibility and playing for the team is outstanding to watch. We are impressed with how they are bowling.” Australia captain Alyssa Healy said.

”Tonight, the top order sort of got out of the way and the middle order came and did an amazing job. ”The impact that Harris had was remarkable and I thought Ellyse Perry played an outstanding knock. Very proud of the batting group.” Ahead of another good turnout at the Brabourne Stadium, Harmanpreet Kaur won the toss and opted to field. Renuka Singh gave India the perfect start, removing captain Alyssa Healy for 1 as early as the first over with a sharp inswinger.