India women hope to salvage pride against formidable Australia in final ODI

The Indian women’s team will be taking the yard for the final time in the ODI series where they lock horns with hosts Australia to salvage some pride. The series fate has already been sealed, with the Aussies winning the first two ODIs without much of a sweat. The Women in Blue will be hopeful of putting in a strong collective show to avert a clean sweep.

The Indian batters have somehow chimed in only in clusters instead of a strong show as a unit. Smriti Mandhana has scored a half-century in the series opener while Pratika Rawal found her rhythm in the second game of the fray. Harmanpreet Kaur has been in prime form with consecutive half-centuries while Kashvee Gautam has also come up clutch with two solid knocks in the lower middle-order.

However, the lack of consistency and a smooth transition from the top-order to the lower middle-order has cost India dearly. They will like to fix the bump before they gear up for the one-off Test which will be played from 6th to 9th March.

Australia, on the contrary, have been back to their phenomenal best and will like to continue the same momentum when they meet India in the final ODI. Their bowlers have been on top of their game while Georgia Voll and Phoebe Litchfield came up with a batting masterclass to leave India stranded in the second ODI. With the kind of firepower that both sides bring to the mix, one can expect this to be a sizzling encounter with lots of spice and drama.

Venue watch:

The first two games in Hobart have already shown that express pace won’t be available on the track. It is going to be more on the slower side with the ball clutching onto the surface. The batters will have to be watchful with their timing and will have to rely more on placements and strength to get the ball running to the fence. Ideally, winning the toss, one would like to bat first, considering that in the latter half of the game, the surface tends to soften up more, thereby leading to more erratic bounce and carry for the batters.

Match details:

Match – India vs Australia, 3rd ODI, 2026

Venue – Ninja Stadium, Hobart

Date –29th February, 2026

Time – 9:20 AM

Head-to-head:

Matches played – 63

India – 12

Australia – 51

Squads:

India:

Harmanpreet Kaur , Smriti Mandhana , Shafali Verma, Renuka Thakur, Sree Charani, Vaishnavi Sharma, Kranti Gaud, Sneh Rana, Deepti Sharma, Richa Ghosh , G Kamalini , Kashvee Gautam, Amanjot Kaur, Jemimah Rodrigues, Harleen Deol

Australia:

Sophie Molineux, Tahlia McGrath, Darcie Brown, Nicola Carey, Kim Garth, Grace Harris, Phoebe Litchfield, Beth Mooney, Ellyse Perry, Megan Schutt, Annabel Sutherland, Georgia Voll, Georgia Wareham