Patchy India will have to lift their game against unforgiving Australia

Having put up a patchy performance in the Womens T20 World Cup thus far India will have to lift their game drastically against nemesis Australia in the first semifinal here on ThursdayIndia who have been among the top teams over the last five years but unable to win a major trophy have expectedly made the semifinals of another ICC eventHowever they have been guilty of selfdestructing in the past especially in a knockout game against England or AustraliaAustralia beat India in the previousT20 World Cup final at home and more recently at Commonwealth Games gold medal match in Birmingham last yearWomens cricket in India has grown massively since the final appearance at the ODI World Cup in 2017 and now it is high time the team converts its promise into performance by stepping up in a doordie game like the one on ThursdayThough the Harmanpreet Kaurled side won three of its four games in the group stage not one performance could be called convincing including the game against Ireland Their sole loss came against EnglandConsidering the way India have played so far one can only hope that somehow they are able to fix all their issues for the big game whether it is the inconsistent toporder the inability to hit sixes barring Richa Ghosh or the high dot ball percentageAlso readHigh dot balls already worrying us Harmanpreet KaurOpener Shafali Verma made her international debut more than three years ago and though still a teenager she has not been able to learn from her mistakes mainly her inability to rotate the strike and her susceptibility against the short ballSkipper Harmanpreet herself will be under tremendous pressure to perform having not done anything of note so far in the World Cup She is one of the few batters who can hit the ball long but has been inconsistent for far too longAnother loss in a World Cup knockout game could end her captaincy tenureJemimah Rodrigues has done alright in the tournament but needs to do more to help the teams causeStar batter Smriti Mandhana has been among the consistent performers and once again she will be critical to the teams chances against Australia who are known to raise their game in a big game to invincible levelsThe Meg Lanningled side would be carrying a 22match T20 winning streak into the semifinalAustralia have lost just two official matches in any format since dropping a T20 game to New Zealand in March 2021 but notably both of those defeats have come against India In December they outplayed India 41 in the series played in MumbaiIn the bowling department pacer Renuka Thakur has been Indias best bowler in the event with seven wickets so far including a five for 15 against EnglandDeepti Sharma went for runs in her one over against Ireland but she has been the most consistent in the spin department The likes of Pooja Vastrakar Rajeshwari Gayakwad and Radha Yadav will have to be much more accurate against the rampaging AussiesAustralia opener Betth Mooney is wary of Indias challenge though going by past results they should win comfortablyIm expecting it to be a huge contest theyve pushed us significantly in the last few years and they have a bunch of match winners in that lineup as well Mooney told reporters here on TuesdayWere not expecting it to be easy by any means whether its with a bat or the ball but we certainly know the style of play theyve come at us with in the past and they know ours pretty well tooHarmanpreet said though her team lost the home series the players got a lot of confidence out of the high scoring five gamesI think that series gave us a lot of confidence you know the brand of cricket we played in that particular series was something which gave us a lot of confidenceAnd now we know them very well We played five games backtoback and then one practice game we know their strength their weaknessAlthough wicketkeeper Alyssa Healy missed Australias final group game against South Africa with quad soreness the opener is fit for Thursdays matchTeams fromIndia Harmanpreet Kaur c Smriti Mandhana Shafali Verma Yastika Bhatia Richa Ghosh Jemimah Rodrigues Harleen Deol Deepti Sharma Devika Vaidya Radha Yadav Renuka Thakur Anjali Sarvani Pooja Vastrakar Rajeshwari Gayakwad and Shikha PandeyAustralia squad Meg Lanning c Alyssa Healy Darcie Brown Ashleigh Gardner Kim Garth Heather Graham Grace Harris Jess Jonassen Alana King Tahlia McGrath Beth Mooney Ellyse Perry Megan Schutt Annabel Sutherland Georgia WarehamMatch starts at 630 PMThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever