Virat Kohli has praised the India women’s cricket team despite their heavy defeat to Australia in the T20 World Cup final on Sunday and has backed them to ‘bounce back’ even stronger.

India were appearing in their first women’s T20 final, having progressed to the showpiece after their semi against England was rained off, but were totally out-classed by the reigning champions.

Australia have won the competition an astonishing five timessince it first debuted in 2009 and they produced one of their best-everperformances with bat and ball at the MCG.

Openers Alyssa Healy and Beth Mooney were absolutely destructive, scoring 75 and 78* respectively, and set India a mammoth target of 185 to win.

But they made a terrible start to the chase, with a flurryof quick wickets, and ultimately fell 85 runs short of their target asAustralia completely dominated a one-sided final they never looked like losing.

Nevertheless, a first final represents real progress forIndia’s players and Kohli was proud of their efforts despite the loss.

‘Proud of all the efforts put in by the Indian Women’sCricket Team throughout their T20 WorldCup campaign,’ he tweeted.

‘I’m confident that you girls will bounce back stronger thanever.’

Speaking about the defeat after the game, India captainHarmanpreet Kaur said: ‘The way we played in the group games was outstanding, Istill have a lot of faith in our team.

‘We need to focus on the areas – particularly the fielding as it was disappointing we dropped those catches. We need to keep trusting ourselves, and I trust this team.’

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