Indian women’s team white-washed the England women’s side in their own backyard. Following wins in Hove and Canterbury earlier in the week, the visitors won the tightly contested Lord’s ODI by only 16 runs while defending a low total of 169 to complete the white-wash and give a winning farewell to legendary pacer Jhulan Goswami, who now has retired from international cricket.
However, the game ended in a controversy – the talks of Spirit of Cricket once again being in the news as India off-spinner Deepti Sharma ran out England’s Charlotte Dean at the non-striker’s end when Dean had moved outside the bowling crease as the last wicket of the innings.
When 17 runs were required to win off 6.3 overs, Deepti Sharma ran into bowl to Freya Davies but noticed that Deam was backing up too far at the non-strikers’ end and ran her out. While the England fans in the stands booed Deepti and the Indian team, the Indian players were all smiles as they’d won the game – in a fair manner.
This run-out – the ICC recently put the run-out at the non-striker’s end in the fair section of dismissals – was surely going to be a talking point.
It was, in fact, the first question that the commentator conducting the post-match interviews asked Indian skipper Harmanpreet Kaur.
And seems like Kaur was prepared to give a perfect reply. Funnily, Kaur first didn’t acknowledge the question and talked about the rest of the game without mentioning the last run-out wicket.
“This wicket was not easy to bat on, our batters did a decent job. We were looking for 170 after losing four wickets. After that, we knew we have the pace attack and spin attack to take the wickets. We never thought we were out of the game,” Kaur said.
When probed again by the commentator about the controversial last dismissal, Kaur gave a terrific reply: “To be honest, I thought you will ask about all the 10 wickets which was not easy to take as well [on being probed about the last wicket],” hearing Kaur’s awesome reply, the Indian contingent in the crowd gave a huge cheer.
The Indian skipper went on to explain that whatever Deepti did is well within the rules.
“It’s part of the game I don’t think we have done something new. It shows your awareness, what batters are doing. I will back my players, she hasn’t done something outside the rules. At the end of the day a win is a win and we will take that,” Kaur added.
You can watch the video of Kaur’s perfect reply here:
“Well, to be honest I thought you will be asking about the first 9 wickets, as they were not easy to take”- Harman preet, my queen <3 pic.twitter.com/CBBw5gQr39
— ♡ (@kyakarungimain) September 24, 2022
Here is the video of how Deepti affected the run-out:
Here’s what transpired #INDvsENG #JhulanGoswami pic.twitter.com/PtYymkvr29
— 𝗔𝗱𝗶𝘁𝘆𝗮 (@StarkAditya_) September 24, 2022
