T20 World Cup 2026 – Sophie Molineux wants to ‘double down’ on the pressure on India

Sophie Molineux plans to “double down” on the pressure India face to qualify for the knockout stages of the Women’s T20 World Cup when the sides meet in their highly anticipated final group match at Lord’s on Sunday.

India represent Australia’s first real test of a tournament in which they’ve swept aside opposing teams one after the other. The nearest anyone else has come to threatening the Australians was South Africa, who had them 24 for 2 in the powerplay and 62 for 4 within eight overs of their opening game. And look how that turned out – Australia won by a thumping 65 runs after posting 172 for 8 then bowling the 2023 and 2024 T20 World Cup runners up out for 107 inside 17 overs.

India, meanwhile, have beaten Pakistan by 64 runs, Netherlands by 95, lost to South Africa by six wickets and beaten Bangladesh by five wickets. They will be keeping a keen eye on the curtain-raiser to their match on Sunday when South Africa face Bangladesh. A win for South Africa will mean India must beat Australia to stay in semi-finals contention.

“We’re in a bit of a different situation to India,” Molineux said. “We still need to win and make sure we finish where we want to place. We know that there’s a bit of pressure on them, and hopefully we can double down on that and put pressure on them as well quite early in the game.

“But games against India are always, always good, always intense. It’s a sellout crowd, so we know it’s going to be a big occasion and we’re very much looking forward to it.”

Australia expect to be bolstered by the return of opening batter Phoebe Litchfield after a quad injury kept her out of the previous two games.

“Phoebe will slot in there in the top order and there’ll be someone that’s going to be really unlucky that’ll have to drop out,” Molineux said. “Who, I’m not too sure.

“We’ll probably have to keep watching this pitch. It’s under a bit of sun at the moment, so we’ll probably have to look at that. The beauty with our squad is the depth that we’ve got and we’ve had to use that at different points this tour.”

Australia have posted their two highest totals at T20 World Cups during this edition, 219 for 6 against Netherlands and 199 for 7 against Pakistan. Against Netherlands, Australia were 61 for 2 in the powerplay and against Pakistan in the same phase they were 64 for 1, pointing to an area where they can put early pressure on India.

“That sort of feeds into what we want to do as a team and how we want to play,” Molineux said. “Our batting order is full of explosiveness and players that are naturally really good run-scorers and will do it at a high rate.

“So it’s just, I suppose, unlocking that and getting the girls to feel like they can be free in the powerplay and after that as well. It’s been really pleasing to see everyone chip in with some runs in the different games that we’ve played.

“It’s nice that everyone’s had a bit of time out the middle at some point during the tournament, and hopefully that puts our top order and middle order in good stead over the next little bit.”

Meanwhile, Beth Mooney has suffered no serious effects from a twice-dislocated finger suffered while keeping wicket against Pakistan, leaving her captain in awe of her resilience.

“It doesn’t look blown up or anything like that, which is a miracle,” Molineux said of Mooney. “She’s tough, so she’ll be absolutely fine to go on Sunday and onwards. I don’t envy her that coming out twice in the one game, and she stayed on but she’s tough and she’s done that a lot for us over the years.”

Australia lost two of their three T20 games when India toured in February, the same opponents who knocked them out in the semi-finals of the 50-over World Cup en route to a maiden global title at home, although Australia swept the ODI leg of India’s recent visit 3-0.

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