(Cricket news) Indian Women's team started their Australia tour in the worst possible way. Australia won the 1st ODI in a very convincing and comfortable fashion by 9 wickets and 9 overs to spare. The toss was going to be very crucial as it was a fresh wicket and bowling first was going to be a very big advantage. Unfortunately for India, Mithali Raj lost the toss and India was put into bat first.
Australia displayed some aggressive bowling from the very beginning. India's dangerous and in form openers Shefali Verma and Smriti Mandhana were dismissed very cheaply by seamer Darcie Brown. Yastika Bhatia and Mithali Raj built a partnership of 77 runs before Bhatia was dismissed. Australia kept picking wickets on regular intervals as India could manage only 225 runs. Debutant Hannah Darlington and spinner Sophie Molineux took 2 wickets each while Darcie Brown put in Player of the match performance by picking up 4 crucial wickets.
India had a very small target to defend and they never looked like doing it. Australia's top 3 of Alyssa Healy, Rachael Haynes and Meg Lanning scored half centuries to guide Australia to a comfortable victory. Healy became the fastest woman to score 2000 runs in One Day Internationals.
Although the Indian batters didn't put a big enough score on the board, it was the bowlers who lost the match. Poonam Yadav was the only bowler who picked up a wicket and that too was just a consolation.
The next W-ODI is on 24th September when Australia will have a chance to wrap up the series. A thumb injury sidelined vice-captain Harmanpreet Kaur from the 1st match but the hard hitting batting all-rounder could come back for the 2nd game.
