‘We can handle the pressure now’
MUMBAI: Indian women’s cricket team had a dream run in last year’s ODI World Cup in England where they steamrolled one opposition after another before crumbling under pressure to suffer a heartbreaking nine-run defeat at the hands of the hosts in the final. A year later as the team gears up to compete in the women’s World T20, which will be staged in the West Indies from November 9 to 24, skipper Harmanpreet Kaur believes her players are now in a better state of mind to perform under pressure and will not commit the kind of mistakes they did in
England. “Barring Mithali (Raj) and Jhulu (Jhulan Goswami), none of us had the experience of playing a World Cup final when we took on England. But now most of us know how to handle pressure in such situations and control nerves. Once you are able to experience something, you know how to deal with it,” said Kaur ahead of the team’s departure on Saturday.
Team coach and former India men’s cricket team offie Ramesh Powar echoed similar sentiments and added that players have been especially trained to overcome the fear of pressure. “We have tried to replicate such situations for players in the last eight games. We put them under pressure and made them bat and bowl in different situations. We changed a lot of things. Sometimes we played only one seamer and sometimes sent youngsters like Tanya (Bhatia) and Jemimah
(Rodrigues) to hit in power-play overs. Our plans have worked well so far. It’s about learning through pressure,” he said.
Powar had special words of praise for youngsters saying they have brought fresh energy into the side. “Youngsters are fearless. This team wants to dominate rather than compete only.”
The coach also backed team’s spinners to do well in the West Indies. “Our strength is spin bowling. In Poonam Yadav, Ekta Bisht, Anuja Patil and Deepti Sharma, we have four top quality spinners who can perform well against any opposition.”
India leave for the World T20 with their confidence high having beaten Australia A 3-0 in the recently-concluded T20 series in Mumbai.
India women have been clubbed with New Zealand, Pakistan, Ireland and Australia in Group B.