After Indian women’s cricket team lost the 2018 Women’s World T20 semi-final against England women’s cricket team, Mithali Raj’s exclusion has come under the scanner. However, the Indian skipper Harmanpreet Kaur claimed that they have no regrets on that decision and also added that she feels proud on team’s performances in this tournament.
Mithali Raj’s exclusion has stunned the Indian cricket experts. Raj was also dropped from the playing XI in the last group stage game against Australia women. However, India already secured their semi-final spot before that Australia game but missing the semi-final was totally unexpected, especially when Raj was in-form as she has played two 50+ knocks in the last two games.
Talking about Mithali Raj’s exclusion, Indian skipper Harmanpreet Kaur said after the end of the match, “Whatever we had decided, we decided for the team. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, but no regrets. Sometimes you have to change your game according to the wicket. England bowled well, they read the wicket really well. Credit goes to them, we’ve learned a lot from this game. It was not an easy total to chase, and our bowlers bowled really well to stretch the match till the 18th over.”
Before this game, India women’s were unbeaten in this WWT20 edition. In the Group B, India women beat their all other opponents – New Zealand women, Pakistan women, Ireland women and Australia women. However, in the semi-final, India failed to produce the same performances against the England women and suffered a heart-breaking defeat in the end.
Speaking on team’s performance, Kaur said, “I’m proud of the way my girls played through the tournament. One bad game won’t decide if we’re a bad team or a good team. This is a learning process for us because we are a young team. I hope we play well in the upcoming tournaments. As we have a young team, we still need to work on our mental strength because we’ll be playing more such games in future. If we can work on how to play under pressure, then we can change the way we play these games.”
Meanwhile, the England captain Heather Knight praised her spinners who changed the whole game. At one stage, India was batting on 89/2 but suddenly they lost the next eight wickets by adding only 23 runs on the board as India was bowled out for just 112 runs (19.3 overs).
There were three run-outs in that innings while the off-spinner Heather Knight (3/9) picked up three wickets and the left-arm spinners Sophie Ecclestone (2/22) and Kirstie Gordon (2/20) claimed two wickets each.
Knight said after the game, “The match got away from us a bit in the power-play, but the spinners bowled really well to bring us back. Kirstie (Gordon) has been outstanding on her first tour. Sophie (Ecclestone) is a young spinner and has shown a lot of quality over the last year or so. I think the conditions have been very tricky in St Lucia and then we’ve come here. The final is going to be a great game, hopefully we’ll have a great atmosphere and a brilliant game of cricket.”
Chasing down the target, England lost their both openers at very early stages. However, the next two batters Amy Jones and Natalie Sciver rescued the team from that difficult situation and carried the team to the comfortable victory. Both completed their half-centuries and had an unbroken 92-run partnership for the third wicket as they reached the target in 17.1 overs after losing only their both openers. Jones remained not out on 53 off 47 balls (3 fours and only six) while Sciver remained unbeaten on 52 off 38 balls (5 fours).
After winning the Player of the Match award, Jones said, “Obviously just fantastic to get the win. Nat came in and took the pressure off straightaway. It was a brilliant stuff, big partnership. We basically just be there till the end. She was always telling me to run hard and we just wanted to be there at the end basically. Playing at 8pm gives you a lot of thinking time. We were playing high quality spinners. We planned a lot for the spinners and it paid off luckily for us.”
