'Resilience, character' on display as fresh hurdles passed

Australia's resilience has been hailed as the world champions overcame missing stars, injury and illness to secure a hard-fought T20I series victory over India with a game to play.

Australia held on to take out the thrilling fourth match by seven runs on Saturday evening and secure an unassailable 3-1 lead in the five-game series with a game to come.

The calm head of Tahlia McGrath, standing in as skipper after Alyssa Healy was forced to retire hurt with a calf strain, marshalled her bowlers through onslaughts from first Harmanpreet Kaur, then Richa Ghosh, to defend a series-high total of 3-188.

Australia came into the series without Meg Lanning, who is on an indefinite break from the game, and the retired Rachael Haynes, then lost key spinner Jess Jonassen to a hamstring injury after one match.

Illness also forced Darcie Brown and Grace Harris to miss games and hampered Beth Mooney's preparation for the series opener.

Despite the interruptions, Australia's only defeat came via a super over loss in the second game.

"(It shows) there's plenty of depth, but also a bit of resilience and character," allrounder Ashleigh Gardner said of Australia's performances since arriving in Mumbai.

"We all knew coming over to India that there was a possibility of illness, there was a long flight to come over here, so there was always chances of things not going our way.

"Just being able to adapt, that's the thing that you need to think about ... when you come to a place like India, it's very different to home.

"There's different challenges, there's different food challenges, there's the heat.

"So it's being able to overcome those and not get caught up in that."

Gardner also praised the cool head of McGrath, who, playing her first series as vice-captain to Healy, was forced to take over for Australia's fielding innings.

Image Id: 4F8382E7ABE74FC58DE847B62759A308 Image Caption: Injury to Alyssa Healy was the latest blow on tour // BCCI

The South Australian only made her T20I debut last October, but recently captained Adelaide Strikers to their maiden WBBL title, and is odds on to become Australia's newest T20I captain for Tuesday's final game with Healy unlikely to recover from her strained calf in time for the dead rubber.

"(Healy's) going alright, she has a bit of a calf strain, which isn't ideal, but she'll be assessed over the next day or so and we'll see what happens after that," Gardner said.

"T-Mac was fantastic in the way that she's very cool, calm and collected.

"It was a pretty big game for her to stand in and she did a fantastic job.

Image Id: D324491B50784A94B22EC164C66F7167 Image Caption: Tahlia McGrath is congratulated after the win // cricket.com.au

"I know most people would probably recognise that when they see her play, nothing really fazes her and I guess she had faith in all of our abilities, and we know our games pretty well."

Saturday's win extended Australia's undefeated run in T20I series to 16, a mark that stretches back to their last visit to India in early 2018.

In the intervening years since that tri-series that also featured England, Australia have won 20-over series against New Zealand (three times), England (twice), India (twice), West Indies, Sri Lanka, a second tri-series against England and India plus another against Pakistan and Ireland, back-to-back T20 World Cups and Commonwealth Games gold.

Next on the horizon is a home series against Pakistan in January, before Australia fly to South Africa for a bid at a third consecutive T20 World Cup title.

"It's been fantastic to see different people get an opportunity at different times and I guess it positions us really well for this next little period going in to a World Cup," Gardner said.

"I think we've played pretty fearlessly over here and we're just trying to set the tone for the next little period going forward."

Australia's T20I tour of India

1st T20I: Australia won by nine wickets

2nd T20I: Match tied (India won the Super Over)

3rd T20I: Australia won by 21 runs

4th T20I: Australia won by seven runs

5th T20I: December 20, Brabourne Stadium, Mumbai (Dec 21, 12.30am AEDT)

Australia squad: Alyssa Healy (c), Tahlia McGrath (vc), Darcie Brown, Nicola Carey, Ashleigh Gardner, Kim Garth, Heather Graham, Grace Harris, Alana King, Phoebe Litchfield, Beth Mooney, Ellyse Perry, Megan Schutt, Annabel Sutherland, Amanda-Jade Wellington

India squad: Harmanpreet Kaur (c), Smriti Mandhana (vc), Shafali Verma, Yastika Bhatia, Jemimah Rodrigues, Deepti Sharma, Radha Yadav, Rajeshwari Gayakwad, Renuka Singh Thakur, Meghna Singh, Anjali Sarvani, Devika Vaidya, S Meghana, Richa Ghosh, Harleen Deol