Follow UsThe Navi Mumbai crowd at the Dr Dy Patil Stadium, gathered for the World Cup 2025 semi-final clash between India and Australia Women, were left shell shocked, after a call of wide by the umpire, eventually turned out to be a wicket in the Indian innings.
It was not any wicket, but the wicket of the highest run-getter of the tournament for India – Smriti Mandhana, when she was looking unbreakable, having hit a six and two fours, playing on run-a-ball 24.
Mandhana herself couldn’t believe that the decision, reviewed by the Australian wicketkeeper-captain Alyssa Healy, would turn out to be her last contribution in a match where she was required to play the anchor or maybe the attacker role as her team was chasing a record target of 339, to try and reach a final for the first time since 2017.
Mandhana showed her disapproval of having had a faint touch of her blade on the cricket ball before it was collected by Healy off the bowling of Kim Garth in the 10th over with the team score reading 59.
The 29-year-old, who was in fact the leading run-scorer of the entire tournament before Laura Wolvaardt of South Africa scored a century in the semi-final to take over from her, was looking to put pressure on the Aussies and got out against the run of play.
Garth had bowled it wide outside leg and, as it feels compulsory for the batters to play anything on the pads down the leg, so Mandhana too played a shot, not even realising that she had got a nick. The umpire had also called it a wide, and it was actually a late review, but it did the trick for the Aussies.