Medium pacer Megan Schutt wreaked havoc as she claimed a hat-trick to help Australia beat India by 36 runs in the T20 tri-series at the Brabourne Stadium in Mumbai on Monday.
Schutt became the first Australian bowler to claim a hat-trick in this format.
With this loss, India have been knocked out of the reckoning from the Twenty20 tri-series final – this was the hosts’ their third successive defeat.
India are without any points, having failed to secure a single win in the series so far and will look for a consolation win over England in their last league match on Thursday.
Batting first, Australia set India a challenging target of 186 for five with the help of twin half centuries by Beth Mooney and Elyse Villani. They then restricted the hosts to 150 for 5 in 20 overs.
Schutt’s (3-31) scalps included the in-form Smriti Mandhana (3), veteran Mithali Raj, who was dismissed for a duck, and Deepti Sharma (2).
While Schutt cleaned up Mandhana and Raj off the fifth and the sixth ball of the second over, she completed her hat-trick in the first ball of the fifth over by removing Sharma, who gave a sitter to Amanda Jade Wellington at mid-off, leaving the hosts in deep trouble at 26/3.
Skipper Harmanpreet Kaur (33 off 30 balls) and Mumbai-batter Jemmimah Rodrigues (50 off 41 balls) stitched a 54-run stand for the fourth wicket, but that was not enough to take the home side to victory.
Rodrigues, who scored her maiden international fifty, and Harmanpreet dealt in ones and twos but the big shots just did not come through for the two. Rodrigues was guilty of giving her wicket away by chipping straight down to the fielder.
Harmanpreet tried to up the ante by hitting a four and a six off consecutive balls, in the 14th over, but was dismissed off the very next ball, caught by Delissa Kimmince off Ashleigh Gardner.
Australian bowlers never allowed the Indian batswomen to settle and took wickets at regular intervals on a placid track.
Anuja Patil chipped in with a quick-fire 38 off 26 balls but the asking rate had risen considerably by then.
Earlier, put into bat, opener Mooney scored a half century and looked unstoppable, hitting eight boundaries. It was medium-pacer Pooja Vastrakar, who removed two Australian batswomen – opener Alyssa Healy (9) and one-down Ashleigh Gardener (17) -- cheaply. While Healy was caught by Rodrigues, Vastrakar cleaned up Gardner.
The visitors were tottering at 29/2 but staged a fine recovery from that point to post 46/2 in the power-play.
India gave away the early advantage by letting Villani and Mooney conjure a 114- run stand for the third wicket to steer the team out of trouble. In the eighth over, Mooney took on off-spinner Deepti Sharma, hitting her for three boundaries.
Villani and Mooney kept the scoreboard ticking, stealing ones and twos with ease.
Australia looked good for a big total before India made a strong comeback by removing Villani, Mooney and Ellyse Perry (1) in quick succession to ensure that Australia were able to add only 45 runs in the last five overs on a placid track.
For the hosts, Vastrakar was the pick of the bowlers with figures of 2-28.
