Indian women’s cricket team faced a heartbreaking defeat in the World Cup final to hosts England at Lord’s. The Indian players fought well throughout the tournament and made it to the World Cup finals for the second time. It was a close game as team India lost the match by just 9 runs.

There were few moments that revealed that Indian players panicked as it was a young team without an experience of playing big tournaments and two rare incidents of run outs ended in part in India’s defeat. India skipper Mithali Raj involved in one of the two run outs and it was a big blow to the team.

It was in the 13th over of their innings and Laura Marsh was in the attack. Punam Raut had drifted the spin down the leg side and called for a single. Mithali, responding to it, had taken a sprint, left her efforts halfway through. At least that is what it seemed. She didn’t make the effort to dive, as Natalie Sciver at short mid wicket bulleted it down to the wicketkeeper and the rest was done by Sarah Taylor.

It looked as if Mithali has given it up during the run-out. She finally opened up on her unusual run out that almost cost team India defeat. Mithali let her emotions flow in the team meeting after the grand finale.

KRK called her Run out as match fixing after missing the crease with her negligence!

https://twitter.com/kamaalrkhan/status/889126150051463168

Mithali revealed, “I saw some weird stuff written about my run out on social media. Actually, what happened was my spike got stuck on the pitch. Punam called me for a run and I responded. Before I reached the half way, this thing (Spike getting stuck) happened and I don’t think the TV cameras captured it. I couldn’t push myself hard and couldn’t even make an effort to dive. I was helpless. I was gutted.”

Mithali, however, seemed rather confident that the team does have chances to win the trophy four years later.

“This team is only going to get better from now on. We have experienced campaigners like Harmanpreet, Veda, Punam and they should see to it that they pass on the experience to younger girls. It’s their duty to mold the youngsters after Jhulan and I leave the stage,” she said.

With age not on her side, probably Mithali Raj won’t get the privilege of lifting the prestigious ICC World Cup Trophy. While the Indian skipper is aware of that fact she managed to control her emotions during the post match presentation ceremony.