Australia Defeats India by Six Wickets in First Women's ODI

By: WE Staff | Wednesday, 25 February 2026

• Australia won the first Women’s ODI against India by six wickets in Brisbane
• India scored 214 runs in the match, with fifties from Smriti Mandhana (58 off 68 balls) and captain Harmanpreet Kaur (53 off 84 balls)

The Queensland capital, Brisbane, played host to an impressive win by Australia over India, who is the current world champions in women's cricket, by six wickets, on Tuesday in the opening One Day International (ODI) match.

Despite posting a total of 214 from their batting line up, which included two half-centuries from Smriti Mandhana (58 runs from 68 balls) and captain Harmanpreet Kaur (53 from 84 balls), wickets fell frequently throughout their innings, so they were nowhere near where they would have fancied being.

With the Australian pace attack looking steady and remaining in good rhythm, the target was achieved quite easily through fifties by the returning skipper Alyssa Healy (50 off 70) from her final series and Beth Mooney (76 off 79).

Spinner Ashleigh Gardner was the pick of the Australia bowlers with figures of three wickets for 33 runs from her seven overs.

This is now the fourth match in the multi-format series and has now leveled up at 2-2 after India won the preceding T20I series 2-1. Following the completion of the three-match ODI series, the two teams will then head to Perth for their one-off Test match - the final game of the career of Alyssa Healy.

Smriti acknowledged that the team’s batting had collapsed and stated that "we started off with two wickets down, which isn’t an easy start. There were some unexpected behaviors from the pitch, however we are continuing to play good cricket, therefore we won’t change too much due to this loss."

She also mentioned how important it is for them as a team to work together in batting and how they need to set a good total and she assures that they will rebound in a big way.

A highlight for India’s bowling on the day was Shree Charani’s impact with two back-to-back wickets in the 11th over by taking out Phoebe Litchfield and Georgia Voll.

India won the toss and elected to bat first in the opening game of the one-day series against Australia at Allan Border Field in Brisbane.

This was the first time that Pratika played after injuring her ankle during India’s successful 2022 One Day International (ODI) World Cup campaign.

Shafali Verma was also making her first appearance at number three, but unfortunately she went out early after playing for a short period of time.

Kashvee Gautam (43 off 44) had a significant role to play, as she hit three sixes, including a straight six over long-on off Megan, to take the total past 200, despite the disappointing performance.