Harmanpreet dismantles Australian attack like she owns it

You know how you can tell a player is settling into their rhythm by just how convincingly they play their trademark shot? Harmanpreet Kaur goes down on one knee, backs herself to clear the infield, brutally swings the bat and then derives sadistic pleasure from watching the bowler react when the ball goes sailing over the midwicket ropes. Slog-sweep, breathe, repeat. Or, she'd mercilessly dance down the track and the bowler knows in an instant what the fate of the ball would be, nine times out of ten.

Of course Harmanpreet Kaur didn't unleash the beast in her till it became absolutely necessary to do so, on Thursday. She'd walked in when India were in a very familiar territory of having lost a couple of early wickets and their captain bating and battling to make ends meet.

But the signs were all there for the Australians to see. Right from the start.

The aesthetically beautiful cover drive Harmanpreet hit to get things going for her in the truncated game would have had her partner at the other end, Mithali Raj, applauding with both hands in the air. The Tendulkaresque straight drive that followed pierced mid-off and mid-on with surgical precision.

Both shots were right out of the cricketing manual and even though they do not define Harmanpreet Kaur Bhullar in a nutshell, they were full of conviction - something that wasn't quite there during her 60 in a similar do-or-die situation against New Zealand last week. Rather, since she'd set foot in the country.

And for a brief period right after, it seemed it was all back to square one. India had succumbed to Australia in the league fixture after consuming more than half their innings in dots; and it was happening all over again. At 20 overs - nearly the halfway mark in 42-overs-a-side affair - India's scoreboard read 70 for 2. Raj and Harmanpreet were both going at a strike rate of 50, or marginally over. Kristen Beams was in the middle of what could potentially turn out to be a match-defining spell. It was indeed one, but just not how Australia would have liked.

Going into her fourth over on the trot, the legspinner had given away only seven off all her previous deliveries. Out comes the slog-sweep off the third delivery. Harmless boundary, really, at the time. More out of necessity, thought Beams, and Australia. Left-arm spinner Jess Jonassen is up next, Harmanpreet jogs down the track and tonks one oh-so-effortlessly over mid-off for another four.

Harmanpreet's world is in the right place. Those two are her get out of jail free cards. She rehearses them in nets, and then some more by dragging a couple of net bowlers to one deserted corner of the ground until it's time to wrap up practice. It is, perhaps, an extension of the routine her childhood coach set for her - daily target of two dozen hits into the stands which, back in the day, was a mango tree in one corner of the ground in Moga.

On Thursday, Harmanpreet awakened the monster in her that's been awfully quiet all along - one that's grown up imitating Virender Sehwag in front of the mirror - and combined it with all the lessons in footwork that's been drilled into her over the years. The after result was one of the most jaw-dropping knocks in the history of cricket. Her gallant 171* was a one-woman show - like some of the knocks the Australians had witnessed earlier in the WBBL|02 - during the course of which the 28-year-old bolted her way into history books.

The fifty came off 64 balls, with a free-hit for a six and boundary off Beams that ominously spelled the start of the onslaught. The rest of the carnage took all of 51 deliveries. Her third ODI century, and India's best-ever in World Cups, was up in 90 balls. Next fifty runs came off just 17 deliveries and the last 21 off eight. India scored 139 runs in the last 11 overs with 108 coming off Harmanpreet's willow.

What would make for a tutorial out of Harmanpreet's belligerent act was how adeptly she negated the threat of Australia's multi-faceted spin attack. She tamed the mighty troika like she owns it. Harmanpreet backed her ability to over the top and batted out of her crease to attack Beams, Jonassen and Ashleigh Gardner. More often than not, she'd shimmy down the track for every opportunity to upset the bowlers' rhythm. Having seen the previous ball being ruthlessly dispatched over long-on in a similar fashion, when Jonassen fired one down the leg side, Harmanpreet still managed to reach out and sent the ball on its way to fine leg fence. She could have stepped on to a landmine and still walked away unscathed - Jonassen's distraught face conveyed just that.

A whopping 110 of Harmanpreet's runs came against an envious spin attack that Australia boasts of, and off just 72 balls. That included half of her boundary count of 20. Of the seven she hit, half dozen sixes were off spinners, and all of them mercilessly planted in the arc between midwicket and long-on that yielded 92 in total.

Once the confidence was restored, there was very little Australia could do tie her feet down. Quite literally.

It didn't matter that her captain Raj, who had been the fulcrum for India, was sent packing by the end of the 25th over, after having contributed only a sedate 36. It was also of no consequence that the batter coming in next, Deepti Sharma, had never endured the pressure that a semifinal can be against arguably the world's best side. In fact, the 19-year-old had never been up against Australia prior to the tournament, and by the time she got a hang of what it is like, she was in tears.

Deepti, inarguably one of the most agile ones in the camp, wasn't up for the second that would bring up the hundred for Harmanpreet but the vice-captain would have none of it. Not only did she push the youngster for run, being halfway down the pitch already, she also made her dissatisfaction clear in no uncertain terms by flinging her bat, helmet and bandana in the air, in that order. Her face had turned red with fury; and normalcy resumed only after the run-out call sent upstairs was turned down.

Her anger and resultant actions weren't a pretty sight. Nor for the teary teenager who couldn't muster enough courage to look Harmanpreet in the eye for next five minutes and neither for those watching back home. But the emotional outburst made way for an apologetic hug as soon as the senior partner realised no harm was done. She didn't want India to lose a wicket at a stage when the batters were hitting the ball so well. Not hers, not even that of her partner's. That came to light only at the mid-innings stage, and the outburst would likely still fetch her a trip to the match referee. But nothing ever will take away the feeling of walking off to a rousing standing ovation from a near capacity stadium, in a foreign land, in a marquee clash, at cricket's biggest stage.

She's put India in the final after a gap of 12 years, and only for the second time in the history of the ICC Women's World Cup. Harmanpreet's reward, however, is here: