Indian
women’s cricket team suffered a 62-run defeat against New Zealand in its second
league statge match of the ICC Women’s World Cup at Seddon Park in Hamilton on Thursday.

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Batting
first, New Zealand has posted a healthy 260 for 9. They then rattled the ‘Women
in Blue’ before bowling them out for only 198 in 46.4 overs.

India
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.

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Vastrakar, Harmanpreet’s efforts
in vain

In
India’s rather forgettable performance, Puja Vastrakar’s 4 for 34 in 10 overs
and Harmanpreet Kaur’s 71 off 62 balls stood out as their performances impacted
the game. While Vastrakar’s four-for could still be credited for stopping New
Zealand’s total from going north of 280, Harmanpreet’s runs might just help her
regain confidence for the coming games.

Amelia
Kerr (50 and 3/56 in 9 overs), one-half of the famous Kerr sisters, first laid
the foundation of New Zealand innings and then breached the defences of rival
skipper Mithali Raj (31 off 56 balls) with a flighted delivery.

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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 all-round
performance. Seamers Lea Tahuhu (3/17 in 10 overs) and Hayley Jensen (3/30 in
6.4 overs) shared the other scalps.

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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 to find ways to rotate the strike.

Captain
Mithali Raj’s struggle continues to worse in her last tournament for India.

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Baffling decision

Even
more baffling was coach Ramesh Powar’s strategy of sending three left-handers
(out of form Shafali Verma was dropped) with home team skipper Sophie Devine
giving the new ball to off-break bowler Frances Mackay (8-1-25-0), who would
take it away from left-handers.

The
figures don’t seem exceptional but much like what Deepak Patel did for men’s
team in 1992, Mackay bowled as many as 27 dot balls in those first 15 overs to
choke the flow of runs.

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India
hasn’t found a way to counter New Zealand and in past 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
battled.

In
the 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 20.

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The
difference was 67 and if one looks at the margin of victory for ‘White Ferns’,
it won’t be very difficult to gauge why things went downhill for Mithali’s
team.

New
Zealand’s 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 day.