Harmanpreet hits back at Hussain for mocking her run-out in the World T20 Cup semi-final vs AUS

The Indian skipper Harmanpreet Kaur who scored 52 runs off 34 balls was questioned regarding Hussain's ‘schoolgirl error’ comment in the post-game conference. Just like her power-packed innings against the Kangaroos, she came with a hard-hitting reply. 

Her ‘run out’ was the biggest and the most happening single event in the match that overturned the Women’s World T20 Cup semi-final between India Women and Australia Women. From being in a pretty comfortable situation to winning the match when 41 was required off 33 balls, India faced a tough phase of scoring 16 runs off the last over which was a pretty tough task. Only one well-recognised batter Deepti Sharma was on the ground. The Indian side ultimately lost the match by just 5 runs as the Aussies marched into the final. 

Kaur’s runout was upset by itself. After getting her half-century with a boundary, she swept Georgia Wareham between the deep mid-wicket and square leg. Mooney tried her best to stop the boundary and threw it back to Kaur’s end. The Indian skipper ran loose in the first to save her energy as she was battling with her illness to play this game and her innings were very crucial to her. It was just this one unlucky time that she fell short of just a few centimetres of distance when her bat struck and Australia keeper Alysa Healy didn’t miss the opportunity to take off the bails. 

There was a series of opposing emotions in the Indian and the Australian camps followed by the run out which described the whole situation. 

Harmanpreet was unfortunate to get run out in that way but the former England skipper Nasser Hussain spoke regarding the Indian captain’s blunders. He stated that Harmanpreet’s unenergetic movement in the latter half of the run was a 'schoolgirl error' in the commentary.

Harmanpreet who smashed 52 off 34 balls was questioned regarding Hussain’s comments in the post-match press conference, and just like her firecracker innings, she came up with an exploding answer against the former England skipper. 

"How will you take the pressure when someone like Naseer Hussain on live commentary calls it a schoolgirl error or a club cricket error? How do you defend something like that?" the journalist asked.

"He said that? Yes. Okay. I don't know. That is a way of thinking. I don't know. But sometimes it happens. I have seen many times in cricket when batters are taking a single like that and sometimes the bat is stuck there. But obviously, I will take it as we were unlucky today. Maybe something still, we have to improve to go to the finals because we definitely didn't field badly. We didn't bowl well in patches. Sometimes we didn't bat well. If you want to win any game, you have to do well in all the departments. Then only you have more chances to go to the semis, to the finals. I think it was unlucky but I don't think it was a mistake by a schoolgirl because we are mature enough. We are playing international cricket and whatever he said, that's his way of thinking. But I don't think it was like that," Harmanpreet expressed.