India and world cups, a complicated relationship.

The Indian women's cricket team today lost to Australia in the final of the World T20 by 87 runs. Once again, after making it so close, India fell short of the finish line and buckled under the pressure. The final hurdle proved to be too high for them to leap over. This is now becoming too monotonous and common. Indian team always make it through the group stages with overwhelming strength and crumble right before the finish line. The difference between them and the cup is very slight but they can neither move forward nor they can move back.

Asked to bowl first after losing the toss, the Indians conceded 184 runs after picking up just 4 wickets in 20 overs. Poonam and Radha Yadav each picked up 1 wicket for reasonable good spells of 1-30 and 1-34. Deepti Sharma took 2 wickets for 38 runs. Alyssa Healy and Beth Mooney put up a solid 115 run partnership for the first wicket, putting pressure on the women in blue from the start. They propelled the score beyond 180.

India in return could only manage 99 runs in reply as none of the batswomen except Deepti Sharma showed any promise. Megan Schutt and Jess Jonassen were the best of the bowlers with 7 wickets(4 and 3 respectively) together, enough to rattle the Indian batting lineup. The other 3 bowlers also chipped in with 3 wickets. The Indians were never really in the game as this was a rather unexciting final for 2 quality oppositions. The Aussies lifted the women's world cup for the 5th time.

Just before this, India U19 also lost in the final to Bangladesh U19. India will now be playing the men's T20 world cup later in October this year and they are hot favourites again. So now with the men's world cup coming up this year, will India get a taste of being world champions? Or will the troubles of knockout stages continue to haunt India?