An excellent present by Jemimah Rodrigues helped India in defeating seven-time world champions Australia by 5 wickets within the semi-final of the ICC Ladies’s ODI World Cup on Thursday.

Rodrigues scored a superb 127 off 134 balls as India efficiently chased 338 with 9 balls to spare in a nail-biting seesaw sport on the DY Patil Stadium in Navi Mumbai. Harmanpreet Kaur scored 89 runs, whereas Richa Ghosh made a quickfire 26 off 16 balls.

Earlier, Australia skipper Alyssa Healy gained the toss and selected to bat. Opener Phoebe Litchfield’s 119 off 93 balls led the defending champions to an enormous rating of 338. That is the best complete by any workforce in a Ladies’s World Cup semi-final, surpassing South Africa’s 319 in opposition to England within the first semi-final of the continuing match.

India will tackle South Africa within the summit conflict on Sunday in a bid to win the maiden title and bury the ghosts of the 2017 heartbreak in opposition to England. If India win, the victory can doubtlessly be a seismic one for ladies’s cricket within the nation, just like what the 1983 World Cup did for the Indian males’s cricket workforce.

(With PTI inputs)