India captain Harmanpreet Kaur minced no words as she lambasted Harleen Deol in the middle after a horrendous mix-up in the middle ended in a disaster for the side in the Women’s World Cup 2025 fixture against Australia at the ACA-VDCA Cricket Stadium in Visakhapatnam.
The incident happened in the 35th over of India’s innings when Megan Schutt had the ball in hand. However, it all ended well as Harmanpreet made her crease in time, and there was nothing to worry about.
However, the Indian captain let her feelings be known to Harleen, with the latter just putting her head down. Harleen made no eye contact with Harmanpreet as she knew the fault lay with her.
It all happened when Schutt bowled a slower one towards the stumps. The back of a length delivery was mistimed by Harmanpreet, and she only managed to cut it to the cover fielder. The 36-year-old charged down the wicket in trying to look for a quick single, only to be sent back from halfway down the pitch.
Harmanpreet had to pull out the dive to escape from danger as the throw came towards the wicketkeeper, Alyssa Healy. As soon as the right-hander got to her ground, she got up to hurl a mouthful towards Harleen.
The very next delivery was then smashed by Harmanpreet for a boundary. Then again, she scolded Harleen for what happened on the previous delivery. The final ball of the 35th over was also hit for a four by Harmanpreet, and she rounded off the proceedings with Harleen by tapping on her back.
Harmanpreet fails to get going
After getting off a good start, the Indian captain was unable to capitalise as she was dismissed on 22 off 17 balls by Megan Schutt. Soon after, Harleen also lost her wicket, and India were in a spot of bother after getting off a rollicking start owing to Smriti Mandhana and Pratika Rawal’s opening stand of 155 runs.
Mandhana scored 80 runs while Rawal scored 75 runs. The left-handed Mandhana also became the first player in the history of women’s cricket to register 1000 ODI runs in a single calendar year.
India finally posted 330 runs on the board. The hosts looked set to go past the 350-run mark; however, Annabel Sutherland’s five-wicket haul stopped the hosts well in their tracks.