ICC T20 World Cup | We Didn't Execute Plans With the Bat, Lack of Partnerships Hurt: Lanning

After her side suffered a 17-run loss to India in the opening match of the ICC Women's T20 World Cup in Sydney, Australian captain Meg Lanning lamented her side's inability to stitch together partnerships during the run chase, which saw Indian spinner Poonam Yadav break the backbone of the Australian batting lineup with four wickets.

"At the halfway stage we thought we were in a pretty good position," Lanning said in the post-match presentation ceremony. "Just didn't execute our plans with the bat unfortunately. Just the lack of partnerships through the middle hurt us."

"Alyssa (Healy) went well for a fifty but couldn't get going after that. We came into this match as ready as we could've been, but India sort of outplayed us. We will assess this game and see what we can learn. It's not ideal. We would've loved to have won. But we have to get back on the bandwagon pretty quickly."

India made 132/4 in the first innings, riding on a quick start provided by 16-year old Shafali Varma. Jemimah Rodrigues' 26, and Deepti Sharma's 49 were the other major contributions.

"They started well and put us under the pump, but our bowlers did a pretty good job to pull things back," Healy added.

The win marks an ideal start for India in the tournament, while Australia will need to win all their group stages games from this point on to guarantee their passage into the next round.