One of the brightest stars in Indian women's cricket, Shafali Verma lost her cool for a little while in the Women's T20 World Cup 2023 clash against Australia on Thursday. Shafali, fielding at backward point, completed a clean catch of Beth Mooney, who had already scored a half-century. While there's no denying the importance of the wicket, Shafali seemed to have gone a little overboard with her celebration. The young opening batter was seen uttering a few words as she gave Mooney a send-off.
It also has to be noted that Mooney was dropped by Shafali Verma at long-on when she had 34 while Lanning survived a stumping chance off late replacement Sneh Rana when she had made nine. For the second time, however, Shafali didn't make a mistake. Here's the video of her reaction:
Shafali, who had recently won the U19 Women's T20 World Cup as India's captain, was hoping for Mooney's dismissal to change the course of the game in India's favour but that didn't happen.
Australia continued their onslaught, thanks to a few terrific performances with the bat, coupled with Indian players' fielding errors, the defending champions posted 172 runs on the board.
In reply, India could only score 167 runs, hence losing the contest by 5 runs. While the performances of Harmanpreet Kaur and Jemimah Rodrigues were worthy of applause, other Indian batters couldn't pitch in with many runs.
As for the match, Australia reached their seventh successive Women's T20 World Cup final when a thrilling Indian run chase fell agonisingly short at Newlands on Thursday.
Australia won by five runs when India finished on 167 for eight in reply to Australia's 172 for four.
Australia will face either England or South Africa in Sunday's final.
With AFP inputs