NEED TO PLAY WITH FOCUS IN BIG GAMES: HARMANPREET

MELBOURNE: India skipper Harmanpreet Kaur on Sunday said she has full faith in her team to do well in future even after Australia outclassed her side by 85 runs in Sunday’s Women’s T20 World Cup final here.

“The way we played in the league games was outstanding. I still have a lot of faith in my team,” Harmanpreet said after the match.

She, however, rued the dropped chances of Australia openers Beth Mooney (78 not out) and Alyssa Healy (75), who set up their team’s victory. “Today, it was unfortunate that we dropped those catches. The coming one-and-a-half years are very important. We need to focus, especially in fielding,” she said. “If we talk about the last T20 World Cup, we got to the semis, and this time to the final. We’re on the right path. Every year we are improving. We just need to think of how we play with focus in the main games. Sometimes we don’t manage that,” the skipper said.

She defended young Shafali Verma, India’s batting star until the final, who dropped Alyssa and was out in the first over . “She is only 16, playing her first World Cup. She did really, really well and performed for us. For a 16-year-old, it’s difficult to keep thinking positively and stay in the game.”

Australia captain Meg Lanning was delighted.“I’m really proud of this group of players and staff. We’ve had everything thrown at us, ups and downs. It was tough, definitely, especially after we lost that first game (to India),” she said.

“There was a lot of expectation on us. Definitely some tough times but we stuck with each other, had each other’s backs.”

Beth Mooney said: “We had some plans we didn’t execute in that first game. We sort of knew what went wrong against India in the first game and we worked on our plans accordingly.”