India women’s cricket team captain Mithali Raj is satisfied with the talent she has in the team going into the ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup from March 4, adding that most of them “have the ability to play at this level”. Notably, this is Mithali’s record sixth appearance in the ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup and she hoped that the tough five-match ODI series against the hosts will help them prepare for the showpiece tournament.
While India lost the ODI series 1-4, they did well in most games, and only some individual performance from the White Ferns players helped them win the series. Mithali Raj also said that she was satisfied with her form and would like to keep scoring more runs during the course of the tournament. However, India will play their opening game against arch-rivals Pakistan on March 6 as well.
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“The talent that we’ve got in the last year, we’ve tried some young talent in the squad, and most of them have shown that they have the ability to play at this level like Richa (Ghosh), Shafali (Verma), we have Meghna Singh in the seamers, Pooja Vastrakar. They all have been given good game time and those series have really helped them and me as a captain to find out where they fit in into the composition of the team,” said Mithali Raj at a captains’ interaction organised by the International Cricket Council (ICC) on Saturday.
“As far as me personally, I am happy with the way that I’ve been scoring runs, and I would love to continue the form into the World Cup. The young talent in the side today, I tell them that you don’t have the experience of the past World Cups, so it’s a clean slate for you, all you have to do is enjoy the big stage,” she said.
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“I did have a word with Yastika (Bhatia) the other day, I took her out for a coffee and we’ve spoken quite a bit, she’s a chatty kid and asked me a lot of questions. The only advice I would tell the young players is enjoy the big stage because if you pile up the pressure you may not be playing the best that the team and you would want to do in the World Cup,” Mithali Raj concluded.
