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Women’s World Cup live: T20 final, Australia v India at the MCG

The Australian women’s cricket team, led by a stunning display of hitting from Alyssa Healy, have crushed India in front of 86,174 fans at the MCG | WATCH

Peter Lalor and Tom Crystal
9 min read
9:41PMMarch 08, 2020.
Updated 6:53PMMarch 10, 2020
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Australia’s players celebrate a wicket against India. Picture: AAP
Australia’s players celebrate a wicket against India. Picture: AAP

Women’s T20 World Cup final live: Australia vs India at the MCG. Australia (4-184) have beaten India (99) by 85 runs..

9.35pm: Fifth T20 title in style

A rampant Australia emphatically swept to their fifth women’s Twenty20 World Cup title, crushing India by 85 runs in front of more than 86,000 fans at the MCG, AFP reports.

Alyssa Healy smashed a quick-fire 75 and Beth Mooney an unbeaten 78 as the defending champions plundered an ominous 4-184 — the highest score ever in a women’s T20 final.

India could only manage 99 all out to end a 17-day tournament that reinforced Australia’s dominance of the sport, having now won five of the seven World Cups so far.

The blockbuster showdown between the world’s top-ranked team and fast-improving India was billed as the biggest in women’s cricket history.

A #FilltheMCG campaign was launched to help bring the sport to a new generation and fans responded with 86,174 attending, despite fears about the deadly coronavirus that has seen other global sporting events cancelled or played behind closed doors.

They were targeting the official world record for a women’s sporting fixture -- set at the 1999 football World Cup final when 90,185 watched the US beat China in California -- but fell just short.

It was nevertheless a record crowd for a women’s cricket game helped by the lure of pop superstar Katy Perry, who performed before and after the game.

— AFP

9.05pm: All over!

Poonam Yadav (1 from 5 balls) is the final wicket to fall as India are dismissed for 99, handing Australia victory by 85 runs. It is their fifth T20 World Cup win. Megan Schutt finished with figures of 4-18, while Jess Jonassen chipped in with 3-20 from her four overs.

Australia’s women’s cricket team celebrate victory. Picture: Mark Stewart
Australia’s women’s cricket team celebrate victory. Picture: Mark Stewart

8.55pm: Victory in sight

Megan Schutt picks up two wickets in her third over, the 18th of the India innings, as the visitors stumble to 8-96. Schutt now has 3-18. India need 88 runs off just 14 deliveries.

Alyssa Healy hits the deck. Picture: AAP
Alyssa Healy hits the deck. Picture: AAP

8.50pm: Crowd figure revealed

The number is in: 86,174 fans at the MCG. They’ve been treated to a dominant display by the Australian side.

8.30pm: Deeper trouble

Delissa Kimmince chimes in with the wicket of Veda Krishnamurthy (19 from 24 balls), nicely taken by a leaping Jess Jonassen at mid off to reduce India to 5-58, which is how they end the 12th over. India need 127 runs off 48 balls.

8.20pm: Aussies well on top

The visitors are 4-39 at the end of the eighth over, having lost Smriti Mandhana (11 from 8 balls) and Harmanpreet Kaur (4 from 7). They’ve also seen Taniya Bhatia retire hurt with a neck injury after making just 2 from 4 balls. The game is slipping away from India.

The MCG under lights. Picture: Mark Stewart
The MCG under lights. Picture: Mark Stewart

7.50pm: Disastrous start for India

Australia’sMegan Schutt strikes with the third ball of the innings, having Shafali Verma well caught behind by Healy for 2. India are reduced to 2-8 in the second over when Jemimah Rodrigues (0) hits a Jess Jonassen delivery straight to mid on.

Megan Schutt dismisses Shafali Verma. Picture: AAP
Megan Schutt dismisses Shafali Verma. Picture: AAP

7.26pm: Australia’s innings ends

Something of a fightback by India, who limit the home team to seven runs off the final over. However, Australia end their innings with an imposing score of 4-184. Opener Beth Mooney finished on 78 from 54 balls.

Beth Mooney improvises against India. Picture: AAP
Beth Mooney improvises against India. Picture: AAP

7.10pm: WICKETS!

Some rare joy for India, as Deepti Sharm has Meg Lanning caught at square leg for 16 from 15 balls. Three balls later Sharma picks up Ashleigh Gardner for 2. Australia are 3-156 after 16.5 overs.

Radha Yadav removes Alyssa Healy. Picture: AAP
Radha Yadav removes Alyssa Healy. Picture: AAP

7.05pm: Runs flowing

Australia are 1-142 after 15 overs. India look totally overwhelmed, they’ve just been steamrolled by some incredible hitting. Beth Mooney has 50 from 41 balls, skipper Meg Lanning 14 from 11.

7pm: How good? None better

Alyssa Healy in brilliant nick. Picture: AAP
Alyssa Healy in brilliant nick. Picture: AAP

6.51pm: Brilliant innings ends

Alyssa Healy lights up the MCG with three sixes off Shikha Pandey, reducing her figures to 0-42 from three overs. The right-hand batter is out next over while trying to belt

Radha Yadav out of he ground. Healy is caught at long on for a breathtaking 75 off 39 balls, featuring seven fours and five sixes. The home team are 1-115 in the 12th over.

6.42pm: Halfway to a huge score

At the midpoint of their innings, Australia are 0-91, on track for a monster total, with Healy 57 from 33 balls and Mooney 32 from 28. None of India’s five bowlers have been spared, conceding 12 fours and two sixes.

Alyssa Healy celebrates after reaching 50. Picture: AAP
Alyssa Healy celebrates after reaching 50. Picture: AAP

6.32pm: Healy hits out

Alyssa Healy punishes spinner Rajeshwari Gayakwad for two consecutive, massive sixes and races to 47 from 27 balls. Australia finish the eighth over on 0-70. Mooney has 23 from 21 but she’s being overshadowed by her fellow opener.

The scene at the MCG for the women’s T20 final. Picture: Mark Stewart
The scene at the MCG for the women’s T20 final. Picture: Mark Stewart

6.25pm: Home side cashing in

Alyssa Healy and Beth Mooney are putting India — playing their first T20 final — under enormous pressure. They’re hitting boundaries at will, and the half-chances are also falling their way. Australia race to 0-47 after five overs, with Healy on 29 from 17 balls and Mooney 10 from 14.

Australian openers Alyssa Healy and Beth Mooney celebrate a boundary. Picture: Michael Klein
Australian openers Alyssa Healy and Beth Mooney celebrate a boundary. Picture: Michael Klein

6.05pm: Hot start by Australia

Alyssa Healy smacks the first ball of the match for four as Australia smash 14 off the over from right-arm off spinner Deepti Sharma. Healy (13) cracks three boundaries to ambush the bowler — no sign of nerves.

Fans packed into the MCG stands. Picture: AAP
Fans packed into the MCG stands. Picture: AAP

5.45pm: Perry bowls over big crowd

US pop star Katy Perry has delivered a stellar entree to the main event, belting out hit songs Roar and Firework, with the help of some enthusiastic cricket bats and young fans on the hallowed MCG surface.

The stage was designed in a purple Venus symbol, and the crowd on the field fanned out to form their own version of the female sign.

Perry walks onto the MCG. Picture: Getty )
Perry walks onto the MCG. Picture: Getty )
Perry wows the crowd. Picture: AAP
Perry wows the crowd. Picture: AAP

5.25pm: Australia win the toss

Big day for Indian captain Harmanpreet Kaur — it’s her 31st birthday. She calls incorrectly and Australian skipper Meg Lanning says Australia will bat first.

The teams are:

Australia: Beth Mooney, Alyssa Healy (wk), Meg Lanning (c), Ashleigh Gardner, Rachael Haynes, Jess Jonassen, Nicola Carey, Delissa Kimmince, Georgia Wareham, Sophie Molineux, Megan Schutt.

India: Shafali Verma, Smriti Mandhana, Jemimah Rodrigues, Harmanpreet Kaur (c), Deepti Sharma, Veda Krishnamurthy, Taniya Bhatiya (wk), Shikha Pandey, Radha Yadav, Poonam Yadav, Rajeshwari Gayakwad.

Ellyse Perry with commentator Mel Jones at the MCG. Picture: AAP
Ellyse Perry with commentator Mel Jones at the MCG. Picture: AAP

5pm: Tension mounts

The toss for the final will take place at 5.20pm. Australia will be skippered by Meg Lanning, while India are led by Harmanpreet Kaur. Tonight’s match brings the event full circle, in that India beat Australia by 17 runs — a stunning upset — in the first match of the tournament.

Remy Varga 4.30pm: Nine ‘snubbed’ final

Channel 9 has been lashed after shunting the Women’s T20 World Cup final to a secondary channel. on International Women’s Day. Read more here

4pm: Gates open

The crowd is building steadily at the MCG, as thousands of fans pour into the ground. It’s still about 23C, with just a few scattered clouds, heading for 21C by the start of play. There’s no risk of rain affecting this showpiece.

Peter Lalor 3pm: Whoever wins, this game is historic

There’s always excitement, pride and emotion around a Cricket World Cup final, but there is something special in the air around Sunday’s clash between India and Australia, coinciding as it does with International Women’s Day.

There is no hyperbole in the claim that this is the most important game in the history of women’s cricket and possibly more important than that.

An Australian win will be a defining moment for female sport in this country. An Indian win will change the course of the game internationally.

This is as much about gender as a contest of skills. Men have been playing elite, professional sport for centuries, they have been filling stadiums and feted by their peers for as long as we can remember. The women in that time have been begrudged a space on the steppes where opportunities were few and fans fewer. There’s was a quiet, determined but isolated community that must have wondered if times like these would ever come.

Indian opener Shafali Vermaduring a nets session at Melbourne Cricket Ground. Picture: Getty Images.
Indian opener Shafali Vermaduring a nets session at Melbourne Cricket Ground. Picture: Getty Images.

This might be bigger than cricket. Indian opener Shafali Verma is 16, she comes from a state where the incidence of female foeticide is higher than anywhere else in the country. The practice speaks volumes about the value of women in that society, but the teenager has defied convention. Having disguised herself as a boy to play a game in place of her brother, she is now the youngest ever woman to make an international half century and the most dangerous opening bat in the game. Her father says the community has begun to acknowledge her feats and accept the fact he has allowed a woman such freedom but advise he must reign her back in when this nonsense passes. A woman still has her place. He has made his first international trip to watch his daughter play today.

Did you see the video of her cutting impromptu dance moves with a security officer after a match?

Or the Thai side doing the same on the boundary during their batting innings?

The footage of the Kiwi women sitting with the Thais after a match and discussing tactics?

The joy and the sense of community among the competitors is tangible and unique.

These are special sights. This is a special event. Men’s world cups might rate more highly, the skills may be sharper, but they do not carry with them the power to change like this event has. Another Indian player bought her father a shop, changing the course of her family’s life. Another bought her dad three cows.

Still the misogynists hold out, bitching and moaning, anxious their advantage may be challenged, nervous the gap is narrowing and their frail privilege is under threat. It’s a shite time to be a shite bloke.

The reception of the event, measured by attendance, ratings and engagement, is proof the popularity of the women’s game is accelerating at an unprecedented rate while still a long way from the validation men receive.

Australia's Megan Schutt (L) and Beth Mooney (C) train in the nets ahead of tonight’s World Cup cricket final. Picture: AFP.
Australia's Megan Schutt (L) and Beth Mooney (C) train in the nets ahead of tonight’s World Cup cricket final. Picture: AFP.

The opening match between Australia and India attracted a record crowd and almost half a million viewers — the second-most-watched woman’s match in Australia. In India, where women’s cricket is not yet afforded the same respect as here, 3.55 million people watched the game, which was broadcast in five languages. The final will attract multiples of that.

More than twice as many games have made it on to free to air in Australia than the corresponding event in 2018.

The Australian women were watched by a crowd of 3000 when they beat England in the final in 1988. If there are that many seats empty in the 100,000-capacity stadium today it will be disappointing.

The male cricket teams have a sense of history, but there is open acknowledgment this is a generational effort, that these women today carry a baton passed by their elders who pioneered the sport in tougher times.

Women like Christina Matthews, one of those who paid her own way for the privilege of competing for her state and country but who continues to clear a path for the next generation in her role as an administrator. There is no more fierce, or sensible, advocate for her sport than the chief executive of the WACA.

Christina Matthew with Australian cricket coach Justin Langer.
Christina Matthew with Australian cricket coach Justin Langer.
Mel Jones, player, pioneering commentator and now director at Cricket Australia. Picture: Brett Costello.
Mel Jones, player, pioneering commentator and now director at Cricket Australia. Picture: Brett Costello.

Belinda Clark is a quiet, respected and hardworking executive at Cricket Australia who stepped in and guided both the women’s and men’s sides as high-performance manager in the tough times after the Longstaff review blew the place up. She is as much a champion of the sport off the field as she was on.

Mel Jones, player, pioneering commentator and now director at Cricket Australia, who has promised herself a first drink on Sunday after an extended abstemious period, signalled the importance of today on social media.

Jones said the game could “well be one of the biggest and most important sporting events Australia has ever hosted”.

“Firstly, it’s the final of the T20 World Cup between two of the most talented, entertaining and influential cricket teams,” she wrote.

“Secondly it (MCG) will be the playing field for a whole host of game changing moments for sport in general which have been driven mostly by faces and names you don’t know.

“While the players will be deservingly front and centre there are thousands of people who have played an enormous role in getting us to today.

“So thank you to our trailblazing past players who did the hard yards and paved the way.

“The voices of the game who tell the stories, shift the conversations and language to support and include …”

Isa Guha, the former England player and another respected commentator, was sad to see her side denied by the weather a chance at playing the final, but has not lost perspective on the importance of this game.

“This could be the greatest women’s event the world has ever seen on the back of what has been a monumental tournament,” she wrote.

South African commentator Natalie Germanos posted a long thread expressing her feelings after South Africa’s brave campaign fell short at the semi-final, before adding:

“Also for me, and this may be selfish — so apologies if it is — but I have dreamt of calling the final in Melbourne in front of 90,000 people and millions watching.

“It’s a hugely significant moment for women’s cricket and will be a special day. Sadly my dream will not be coming true.

“I would have loved to have been part of the commentary team and I have worked every day towards this but it’s not meant to be

“But I will be cheering on from the crowd as we witness history being made in women’s sport.”

It’s a good day to be a human.

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Original URL: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/sport/cricket/cricket-world-cup-whoever-wins-this-game-is-historic/news-story/70477684f38c4bbfa89987a58ff626e4