Yastika Bhatia Retired Out, Then Slammed By Harmanpreet Kaur

Harmanpreet Kaur on Yastika Bhatia's 33(36) [Source: AFP, AP]

Saturday afternoon in Bristol saw another instance of a growing trend of teams retiring out the batters to give their team a better chance of winning in T20 cricket.

This time around, it was India’s top-order bat, Yastika Bhatia, who had to walk back to the pavilion as India looked to seal the three-match T20I series ahead of the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup. 

Captain Harmanpreet Kaur later explained the matter and admitted that Yastika Bhatia looked out of sorts as they failed to chase 169 in the match.

England level the series in Bristol

Batting first after losing the series opener by 38 runs, Freya Kemp’s swashbuckling 39*(13) with four fours and two sixes helped England to recover from a slow first half of the innings. Having come in to bat at 116/4 at the 16.3 over mark, Kemp’s knock proved to be the deciding factor in the match.

Sree Charani was the pick of the bowlers for India, with 3/25 (4), while Nandani Sharm and Shreyanka Patil picked a wicket each.

In response, all top-4 Indian batters got starts and scored over 20 each, but they failed to score freely and fell short by 27 runs. Lauren Bell, Charlie Dean and Freya Kemp picked two wickets each and squared the series, restricting India to 142/9.

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Harmanpreet Kaur critiques Yastika Bhatia’s knock in the 2nd T20I

During the run-chase, India started with a flier, with 22 (14) for Shafali Varma before she was dismissed at the end of the third over. Smriti Mandhana and Yastika Bhatia also stitched a 43-run stand before Mandhana’s wicket at 8.6 when the score was 70/2.

India needed 99 from 66, which looked like a chasable target, but Yastika Bhatia, who scored a fifty in the first match after a long injury layoff, struggled to get going throughout her innings. Despite being in form and scoring 40* (17) at one stage in the first T20I, Bhatia could not connect with anything in Bristol and found herself 33 off 36 at the end of the 15th over.

She was retired out for Jemimah Rodrigues, but even she couldn’t make any impact and got out for 1 off 2 in the next over.

Speaking in the post-match interview, captain Harmanpreet Kaur criticised Yastika’s knock but thought their plan could have worked out if Jemimah had batted a bit longer.

“Unfortunately, she [Yastika] wasn’t connecting the ball, and we felt Jemimah was someone who had scored runs in the last game, so we wanted to give her a chance. But I think it didn’t work for us,” she said.

India kept losing wickets, and Harmanpreet Kaur, who had returned to the XI also only scored an underwhelming 28 off 22 before being dismissed by Dean at the end of the 18th over.

All to play for in Taunton

The third and final T20I of the series will now be played in Taunton, which will decide the series winner. Notably, this will also be India’s final match before the T20 World Cup, with a lot of eyes on them after their recent ODI World Cup glory.

After the decider match, India will have a short break before the Warm-up match against the West Indies in Cardiff on June 8.

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