‘Badhiyaan effort thaa lekin’ – Fans react as Richa Ghosh agonisingly misses her ODI hundred by four runs, India lose by three runs against Australia

In the second ODI of the three-match series between India and Australia, the Aussies won the toss and elected to bat first. Ahead of the game, the visitors were coming off a 1-0 lead. Meanwhile, in this game, the ODI and T20 World Cup holders had a decent start with skipper Alyssa Healy and Phoebe Litchfield putting together 40 runs for the first wicket.

After the fall of Healy (13), Ellyse Perry and Litchfield added 77 runs for the second wicket. After this partnership was broken, the team went from 117/1 to 216/7. For the home side, Deepti Sharma took a five-wicket haul. On the other hand, Pooja Vastrakar, Shreyanka Patil, and Sneh Rana took one each. The likes of Annabel Sutherland, Georgia Wareham, and Alana King helped the team reach 258/8.

Richa Ghosh’s efforts go in vain as India loses agonizingly

In reply, the Women In Blue had a decent start as Yastika Bhatia and Smriti Mandhana scored 37 runs. After the wicket of the former, Richa Ghosh was promoted up in the batting order against her usual batting position of six or seven. After the wicket of Mandhana at the team score of 71 runs, Ghosh and Jemimah Rodrigues added 88 runs for the fourth wicket.

The former scored 96 runs before agonizingly missing out on her maiden ODI hundred. Notably, she is yet to hit a hundred across all formats of the game. Not to forget, she bats in the lower-middle order. After Ghosh’s wicket, the middle order and lower order failed to help the team chase the target. They ended up losing the game by three runs and losing the series with one game left.

This is how Twitter reacted