India had only scored three runs off their final over, and then conceded 18 in the first of Australia's chase. Having dominated for much of the time with the bat during the deciding T20I in Adelaide as Smriti Mandhana and Jemimah Rodrigues added 121, it felt like a swing back towards the home side. It turned out to be anything but.
In just her second T20I since the last World Cup, offspinner Shreyanka Patil found Georgia Voll's top edge with her second delivery, and then in her next over beat Ellyse Perry's charge with one that dipped and turned. To cap off an impressive spell, she later ensured against any late twist by trapping Annabel Sutherland lbw.
There had been some conjecture when she was recalled in place of quick Kranti Gaud, but it proved a masterstroke in selection. For Patil, it continued a successful return to the game after an injury-hit 14 months, which included being of Royal Challengers Bengaluru's WPL triumph where she claimed 11 wickets.
On Saturday in Adelaide, things had felt good for her from the start. "When I see my revs, my hand, going in a certain way I kind of get that confidence and today I did feel that," Patil said. "Getting that wicket [of Voll] will obviously boost your confidence, [but] actually what made me more happy was getting Pez's wicket. That made me feel very special because [it was] her 350th [international] match, then me getting her wicket, think she will remember and I will remember for sure."
It all added up to another difficult night for Australia, who slumped to their first bilateral series defeat since 2017, when they lost the T20I leg of the Ashes. That was the last of four consecutive T20I series losses (there was a victory in a one-off game against Sri Lanka in the middle of the run), which began with India's only other series win in Australia and included two defeats by New Zealand.
From then on, Australia became a near unstoppable force, winning three T20 World Cups in a row until falling at the semi-finals in 2024. In 102 T20Is since the start of 2018, they have won 80, with yesterday's loss to India just their 17th defeat (with two of those in Super Overs).
But this is now a team going through a reset under new captain Sophie Molineux and various parts of their game did not come together in this series. They were comfortably outplayed twice; bowled out for 133 in the opening match in Sydney before falling well short in Adelaide. They won in Canberra on the back of a 128-run opening stand and some excellent bowling, but they were unconvincing with bat in the second half of that innings.
Meanwhile, there was a somewhat frenetic nature to the batting in the two losses: at the SCG, they lost 8 for 65 and 5 for 12, while in Adelaide, they shed three wickets inside the powerplay. It's an occupational hazard in T20, with an element of risk and reward, but there's a sense of the balance being a little off. Ashleigh Gardner's first T20I fifty since December 2022 was one encouraging sign.
"With the bat, we looked good early, and players got going, but we just lost key wickets at really big times, which can happen in T20 cricket," Molineux said. "We were probably a few short at the ten-over mark and had to push on."
Australia made two significant selection calls at the start of the series by omitting Tahlia McGrath and Megan Schutt, with neither getting an outing in three games. Grace Harris replaced Nicola Carey in Adelaide and batted at No. 8. There remains a reluctance to push Sutherland, whose T20 batting numbers are admittedly underwhelming, further up the order with Georgia Wareham taking No. 6.
Another question mark is around Darcie Brown's position in the team. She began the deciding T20I with a ten-ball over, which started with four wides in the first five deliveries, and finished the series with figures of 8-0-66-0. Since the start of 2024, she has taken eight wickets in 13 T20Is.
"We've wanted to win every single game and win comfortably, but you've got to keep evolving and try to stay ahead of the curve and part of that is giving people opportunity," Molineux said. "It's not the first time someone like Darce or Nic Carey has bowled in the powerplay, they've done it for a long time at domestic level, and Darce has done it for us as well, so we were just having a look at it all and there's plenty of positives to take away from that side of things."
Molineux will now hand back the captaincy to Alyssa Healy for her farewell lap in international cricket during the ODIs and Test match, before resuming across all formats in the West Indies next month. The one-dayers against India are not part of the Women's Championship, which decides World Cup qualification, so coupled with it being early in a new four-year cycle there is, perhaps, a little less immediate significance of those matches.
"That's first and foremost our priority, to get to Brisbane, reassess, and park these T20s," Molineux said. "I think there's a lot of lessons learned that we can bring back when we're in the West Indies and prep for that T20 World Cup."
Australia will have extra T20s when they arrive in England ahead of the World Cup in the middle of the year, but there will be a sense of urgency to see things come together in those three games in the Caribbean during early April.