After Sunday's heart-breaking defeat to Australia in the gold medal match of the Women's T20 competition of the 2022 Commonwealth Games at Birmingham, skipper Harmanpreet Kaur and coach Ramesh Powar would do well to advertise for a finisher in the mould of MS Dhoni.
On Sunday, India had bowled, fielded and batted extremely well to put themselves in the driver's seat against the mighty Aussies. However, poised for a win when Harmanpreet Kaur (65) and Jemimah Rodrigues were going great guns in their 96-run partnership that took them to 118 for two in the 15th over chasing 162, India, needing just 44 off 33 balls, self-destructed in spectacular fashion, losing eight wickets for 34 runs in 30 balls to crash to 152 all out.
After making them fight for every ball for much of the final, India handed over the gold medal to the Southern Stars on a platter. Yet again. It was a case of so near and so far for the Indian women's team.
"Congratulations to the Indian women's team for winning silver . . But they will go home disappointed as it was their game tonite. . @BCCIWomen," tweeted former India skipper and current BCCI president Sourav Ganguly.
Another ex-India captain, Mohammed Azharuddin, was scathing in his criticism of Indian women's team's implosion with the bat in the final. "Rubbish batting by the Indian team. No common sense. Gave away a winning game on a platter," he tweeted.
Batting brilliantly in the final, Harmanpreet would blame herself for not finishing the job, but it was the failure of the allrounders, Pooja Vastrakar (1) Deepti Sharma (13), Sneh Rana (8), Radha Yadav (1), and the specialist 'keeper-batter Yastika Bhatia (2) to take India home that rankled.
It wasn't the first time that this has happened to the Indian women's team in a big final. In the 2017 ODI World Cup final at Lord's against hosts England, India, placed at 191 for three in the 43rd over while chasing 229, were cruising towards a win, before losing their last seven wickets for 28 runs in 35 balls, to fold up for 219. Eeeringly, the slender margin of India's defeat was exactly what it was on Sunday-9 runs!