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19 October 2025. After South Africa and Australia, England also defeated India in the Women’s ODI World Cup. Forget winning the trophy, it was difficult for India Women to even reach the semi-finals. The match against 2000 champion New Zealand was yet to be played and Team India had completely lost momentum.
From there today, 31st October, India Women entered the finals. The entry was also not trivial, the 7-time champion and has not lost in the tournament so far, not only defeated Australia but also chased the biggest target in the history of Women’s ODI. The script of this victory was written by India’s captain Harmanpreet Kaur and Jemimah Rodrigues who remained not out after scoring a century.
Let us know in the story how India made a historic comeback…
Defeated Sri Lanka-Pakistan easily
India started the ODI World Cup with a match against Sri Lanka in Guwahati. Batting first at Barsapara Stadium, India scored 269 runs. In reply, Sri Lanka was bundled out for 211. Deepti Sharma, who took 3 wickets along with scoring a fifty, was the player of the match.
In the second match, India faced arch-rival Pakistan. Colombo had a spin friendly pitch, where Pakistani spinners could have benefited. India scored 247 runs here and won the second consecutive match by restricting Pakistan to 159 runs. Fast bowler Kranti Gaur, who took 3 wickets, was the player of the match.
India registered its second consecutive win by defeating Pakistan by 88 runs.
South Africa gave first defeat
With 2 consecutive wins, Team India reached Visakhapatnam, where the match was to be held against South Africa. South Africa was all out for 69 runs against England. Batting first, India lost 6 wickets for 102 runs. From there, wicketkeeper Richa Ghosh scored 94 runs and took the team to 251.
Against the target of 252, South Africa also lost 5 wickets for just 81 runs. Laura Wolwart was keeping the team in control by scoring fifty, she was out after scoring 70 runs. It seemed that India would win now, but Chloe Tryon scored 49 runs and Nadine de Klerk scored 84 runs to help the team win by 3 wickets with 7 balls to spare.
Australia-England broke the momentum
After the first defeat in the tournament, India faced 7-time champion Australia. India showed fight in Visakhapatnam and scored 330 runs on the basis of fifty of the openers. However, the team was all out with 7 balls remaining.
To defeat India, Australia had to achieve the biggest target. Team captain Alyssa Healy scored a century. Phoebe Litchfield and Ashley Gardner took the team closer to the target by scoring 40 plus runs. Ellyse Perry scored 47 runs in the end and gave the team victory with 6 balls to spare. This was the most successful run chase in ODI history.
After 2 consecutive defeats, India faced England in Indore. Batting first, England scored 288 runs, with former team captain Heather Knight scoring a century. India had scored 250 runs in 45 overs, 3 players from the team scored fifty. Richa Ghosh was out in the very next over, as soon as she left the team lost a close match by 4 runs.
India lost a close match against England by 4 runs and scored a hat-trick of defeats.
Mandhana-Pratika raised hopes
India Women, who had suffered a hat-trick of defeats in the Home World Cup, was in danger of being out of the tournament. The next match was against New Zealand, if India had lost then it could have been eliminated. Pratika Rawal and Smriti Mandhana from India Women, who came to bat first in Navi Mumbai, scored centuries. On the basis of Jemima’s fifty, India made its best World Cup score of 340 runs.
In front of the big target, New Zealand team could score only 271 runs. Mandhana, who took 3 catches along with scoring a century, was the player of the match. With this victory, India also entered the semi-finals. The last match of the group stage against Bangladesh remained inconclusive due to rain.
Smriti Mandhana scored her first century in World Cup 2025.
Clash with 7-time champion Australia
India’s semi-final was to be against Australia, the 7-time champion and which had not lost a single match in the tournament. One match of Australia was cancelled, while the team won the remaining 6 matches in a one-sided manner. The team also suffered its last defeat in the Women’s World Cup in 2017. Since then the team had won 15 matches.
Australia made initial dominance
Faced with the pressure of the semi-finals in Navi Mumbai, Australia won the toss and chose to bat. In most of the big matches, Australia’s men’s and women’s teams bat first on flat pitches. Same thing happened on 30th October also.
Australia lost the wicket of captain Healy in the powerplay itself, but from here 22-year-old Phoebe Litchfield and experienced Ellyse Perry made a century partnership. Lichfield scored a century. In the end Ashley Gardner scored a quick 63 runs and took the team to 338 runs. This was the second highest score of knockout in the World Cup.
chasing the biggest target
History had to be created for India to reach the World Cup final. Along with chasing the biggest target in ODI history, the team also had to break the winning streak of 7-time champion Australia. Australia also put pressure in the powerplay itself, Shefali Verma was out after scoring only 10 runs and Smriti Mandhana was out after scoring only 24 runs.
Captain Harmanpreet Kaur, who came at number-4, took over the innings along with Jemimah Rodriguez. Both maintained the run rate of 6 and completed the team’s century in the 18th over. After scoring fifty, the captain started scoring runs rapidly and took the team beyond 200.
Tired, fell, survived…
But Jemima did not give up…
While trying to score runs quickly, Harman was out after scoring 89 runs on 88 balls. After her, Deepti Sharma came to bat, Jemima was moving towards a century at the other end. Alyssa Healy dropped her simple catch in the 33rd over, at which time Jemima was on the score of 83 runs.
One over later, Jemima also escaped being LBW against Alana King. Meanwhile, while avoiding run out, she went to the pitch but did not get out. Fatigue was clearly visible in Jemima’s body language. Jemima also missed the catch from Tahlia McGrath at mid-off in the 44th over, during which she had 107 runs.
In front of Jemima, Deepti Sharma was out after scoring 24 runs in 17 balls and Richa Ghosh was out after scoring 26 runs in 16 balls. Richa definitely took India closer to victory, but 29 runs were still needed from 24 balls. Amanjot Kaur came to bat to support Jemima.
Jemima’s muscles got strained while batting. Fellow players reached the pitch to check on him.
…and then Jemima cried
Sophie Molyneux came to bowl in the 47th over, she gave only 6 runs. The next over was bowled by Annabel Sutherland, due to dew it was difficult to get a grip on the ball. 4 runs were scored on the first 2 balls. On the third ball, Jemima played a scoop shot and hit a four behind the wicketkeeper. Sutherland bowled 2 wides. With 14 runs needed off 15 balls, Jemimah hit another four towards point.
15 runs came from the over and India needed 8 runs from 12 balls. On the very first ball against Molyneux, Amanjot hit a four towards the covers, 2 runs were scored on the next ball. Needing 2 more runs, Molyneux bowled a short pitched ball just past the off stump. Amanjot again hit a four towards covers and gave India a historic victory.
Jemima became emotional after the victory.
As soon as Amanjot’s ball started going towards the boundary, Jemima, who had scored a century, ran to Amanjot and hugged him and started crying. He folded his hands looking at the audience, during which his tears started falling continuously. After the victory, Indian captain Harmanpreet Kaur also burst into tears in the dugout. He had a match winning partnership of 167 runs with Jemimah.
Jemimah Rodriguez had tears in her eyes after leading India to a historic win.
Australia was also excluded 8 years ago
India achieved the biggest target of ODI against Australia in 2025, broke their winning streak in the World Cup and made it to the final. This is not the first time that India has defeated Australia in the semi-finals.
In 2017, India had ousted Australia with the help of Harmanpreet’s 171 runs on the English soil. Even then Australia was not defeated in the World Cup. However, then in the final, India had to face defeat by 9 runs in a close match against England.
New world champion will be found on November 2
On November 2, Team India will play the title match against South Africa, who defeated England in the semi-finals and eliminated them. South Africa also made an excellent comeback in the tournament. In the first match, the team lost against England by 10 wickets by scoring just 69 runs. The same team was defeated by South Africa by 125 runs in the semi-finals and made it to the final for the first time.
South Africa has made it to the finals for the first time, while India has got a place in the title match of the ODI World Cup for the third time. The team has lost the finals to Australia in 2005 and England in 2017. The world will get a new Women’s ODI World Champion in the DY Patil Stadium of Navi Mumbai.
