Throughout the course of the tournament, the opening pair of Smriti Mandhana and Shafali Verma have been the chief contributors for India, with their aggressive and confident opening starts often laying down the foundations for the innings to gain further impetus for the batters to follow. However, the only time they failed to fire, India got into trouble. Both Smriti and Shafali would not want to look at their dismissals. While the former walked a little too far across, and got cleaned up behind her legs, the latter failed to make the use of her reprieve, giving away her wicket needlessly two balls later. This was one of the major turning points in the game as India were 2 down for just 22 in the first 3 overs itself.

When Jemimah Rodrigues was dismissed, everyone was expecting the hard-hitting Deepti Sharma to walk out to the centre. The left-hander was in good nick and could have been very crucial in assisting Harmanpreet Kaur, who was going great guns at the moment. However, to everyone’s surprise, it was Pooja Vastrakar who walked out to bat. Now on another day it would have been a good decision.

But today, it didn’t make much sense, because this was the first time that Vastrakar had come out to bat, having being sidelined by Covid for the first two games. Predictably, she struggled at her time in the middle, scoring just 1 from 5 balls and getting out after mistiming her hook shot. Experimenting is good, but not at a key juncture in the final.

2017 WC final at lord’s. India cruising at 191/3 needing 228 to win. India went on to collapse and lose the final by 9 runs. Cue 5 years later, and a chance to set the record straight, India once again were cruising at 114/2, with 44 needed to win from 33 balls. The mighty Aussies were running out of ideas and patience. And then the Indian batters decide to commit absolute hara-kiri. First Jemimah Rodrigues gets castled in an attempt to accelerate.

Then Vastrakar holed out in the deep. The skipper Harmanpreet, who was holding strong, decides to paddle sweep and gets caught behind. A couple of mindless runouts and India found themselves 9 down with 11 of the last over. It was too much for Yastika Bhatia, who was the last batter dismissed, and once again India lost by 9 runs. These types of collapses are becoming a common sight, and if India have to become a dominant force, they will have to capitalize on such dominant positions if they want to be counted among the elites.