India Women vs Australia Women 3rd T20I: Australia take 2-1 lead after 21 run victory

A mishap in the middle overs while chasing inflicted a 21-run loss for India Women against Australia in the 3rd T20I on Wednesday.

Ellyse Perry was the star with the bat for the Aussies while Darcie Brown and Ashleigh Gardner picked up a couple of wickets each with the ball.

India came to the tie after levelling the series in the last match with a super-over victory. Australia take a 2-1 lead in the five-match series.

India Women vs Australia Women Match Centre:

Winning the toss, India captain Harmanpreet Kaur chose to bowl. Her decision paid dividends as Australia suffered a couple of early blows with both Alyssa Healy (1) and Tahila McGrath (1) back to the hut, leaving Australia 5 for 2.

But Beth Mooney and Ellyse Perry stitched a decent partnership to rescue the Aussies. The latter went on to score a fantastic 75 off just 47 balls. A late flurry from Grace Harris (41 off 18 balls) took Australia to 172 for 8 at the end of their twenty overs.

Four Indian bowlers - Renuka Singh, Anjali Sarvani, Deepti Sharma and Devika Vaidya picked up two wickets each, with Renuka Singh being the pick of the bowling unit (4-0-24-2).

In reply, India lost Smriti Mandhana early. The southpaw managed 1 off 10 balls before falling victim to Darcie Brown. Shafali Verma and Harmanpreet Kaur steadied India's run chase with an important 73 runs partnership for the 3rd wicket, before the former fell to Nicola Carey on 52 runs. India lost a couple of more wickets in quick succession as Ashleigh Gardner struck twice to send Devika Vaidya and Richa Ghosh for an early shower. Vaidya hit one straight to Gardner, while Richa's wayward slog was seized in at long-on by Annabel Sutherland.

The body bow for India came in the 17th over, when India's last resort Harmanpreet Kaur (37 off 27 balls) departed in the bowling of Megan Schutt. Deepti Sharma tried her best with a cameo, but India's lower order didn't have the artillery to match the asking rate in the final overs. The women in Blue managed 151 for 7 at the end of their full quota of overs.