Australian women cricketer Sophie Molineux has showcased great courage when she returned to the field after being hit by a nasty bouncy ball. This happened during the third and last women’s ODI between Australia and India at the Harrup Park in Mackay.
However, Molineux delivered a stunning spell to make India’s chase of 265 quite difficult. As far as the incident is concerned, it was the last ball of 39th over when the game was on a neutral position. Deepti Sharma top-edged a short delivery from Annabel Sutherland and the ball went at the fine leg region. Stella Campbell, who was fielding in that region, quickly collected the ball and threw it back to the striker’s end. As Molineux was standing near the stumps, she thought to collect the ball.
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Unfortunately, the ball bounced just in front of her and hit her face. She was then taken off the field for treatment. As the hit was nasty, Sophie Molineux wasn’t expected to return on the field. However, she came back with a bandage wrapped around her mouth after some time.
Sophie Molineux is off the field and getting checked out after copping a nasty bouncing ball to the mouth #AUSvIND pic.twitter.com/fnvTmHPL0p
— cricket.com.au (@cricketcomau) September 26, 2021
However, she even bowled a couple of overs, giving a tough time to Indian batters as well. Unfortunately for them, Molineux couldn’t take the team home. But, her courage and passion impressed everyone. The Talented spinner gave away 41 runs in 9.3 overs alongside taking an important wicket of Shafali Verma as well. However, two fifties from Shafali Verma and Yastika Bhatia at the top and a few cameos from the lower order sealed the deal for India as well.
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After the loss, Australia captain Meg Lanning said: “It was a great contest. We had our chances, we couldn’t take them. India came out really well with the ball and kept fighting with the bat, so they deserved this win. I knew she (Molineux) would be coming back, she’s a tough character. It was brave to come back and bowl those last few overs. She’s a very important part of our team, she showed how tight she can bowl in the tough situation, so full credit to her. We were running out of players at one stage. We didn’t get the win but there were a lot of positives – the way Sutherland bowled, Stella Campbell on debut and Tahlia McGrath with the bat.”
She continued: “We would have liked to get the win today but we still feel we got a lot out of this game. I don’t think we change a lot from the one-day format, if we go too defensive in the Test match, it won’t turn out well for us. We’ll try to find the right tempo from our batting point of view, that’s the challenge for us over the next few days. With the ball I don’t think anything changes either, it’s being aggressive, taking wickets, I think we have done that throughout the series.”
