Women's World Cup 2022: Lea Tahuhu, Kerr star as NZ crush India by 62 runs

An inept batting performance by India led to an alltoofamiliar surrender against New Zealand as the Mithali Rajled side went down by 62 runs in its second league stage match of the ICC Womens World CupNew Zealand who have dominated the Indians throughout this summer didnt let anything change in a familiar script by first scoring a healthy 260 for 9 They then choked the Women in Blue before bowling them out for only 198 in 464 oversIndia have now slipped to fifth among eight teams after this defeat while New Zealand with two wins from three games are now second behind Australia in the overall standings Puja Vastrakars 4 for 34 in 10 overs and Harmanpreet Kaurs 71 off 62 balls were two isolated performances which hardly made any impact on the larger outcomeWhile Vastrakars fourfor could still be credited for stopping New Zealands total from going north of 280 Harmanpreets runs might just help her regain confidence for the coming games Amelia Kerr 50 and 356 in 9 overs one half of the famous Kerr sisters first laid the platform with a solid half century and then breached the defences of rival skipper Mithali Raj 31 off 56 balls with a flighted delivery Her fast googly dismissed Richa Ghosh 0 off the successive delivery to make it virtually impossible for India Towards the end she also snapped up Harmanpreet to make it a perfect allround performanceSeamers Lea Tahuhu 317 in 10 overs and Hayley Jensen 330 in 64 overs shared the other scalps The pursuit of 261 started on a discordant note with Smriti Mandhana 6 off 21 balls Yastika Bhatia 28 off 59 balls and Deepti Sharma 5 off 13 balls unable find ways to rotate the strikeMithalis struggles have been well documented and its not getting any better in her last tournament for India Even more baffling was coach Ramesh Powars strategy of sending three lefthanders out of form Shafali Verma was dropped with home team skipper Sophie Devine giving the new ball to offbreak bowler Frances Mackay 81250 who would take it away from lefthanders The figures dont seem exceptional but much like what Deepak Patel did for mens team in 1992 Mackay bowled as many as 27 dot balls in those first 15 overs to choke the flow of runsIndia havent found a way to counter New Zealand and in past one month have lost five of the six WODIs against the White Ferns The game could be divided into two sets of first 20 overs where the two teams batted In case of New Zealand the first 20 overs yielded 117 runs for the loss of just two wickets while India in their response painfully reached 50 for 3 in their share of 20The difference was 67 and if one looks at the margin of victory for White Ferns it wont be very difficult to gauge why things went downhill for Mithalis team New Zealands batting has four pillars Suzie Bates 5 skipper Devine 35 No 3 Kerr 50 and No 4 Amy Satterthwaite 75 and three performed on the dayThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever