Knew it won’t be easy for Pak to chase 170: Mithali

DERBY: India skipper Mithali Raj said she knew it would not be easy for Pakistan to chase down 170 as the pitch deteriorated in the second innings during their ICC Women's World Cup match here.

Batting first, India suffered a batting collapse before reaching 169 for nine and Mithali praised Sushma Verma and Jhulan Goswami for their lower-order contributions.

“When you lose first wicket in first 10 overs, it naturally puts us on the backfoot. Though there were decent partnerships but there were two back-to-back wickets so we were on the backfoot,” Mithali told reporters after the match.

“The advice or suggestion that we gave to the batters was to play till the 40th over but unfortunately again we lost wickets and in the end we had Sushma and Jhulan, those runs were crucial because it got us to 170 and we were looking for that score when we lost the top 4.

“When we reached 170, I knew it was just a matter of taking those early breakthroughs because no matter how good a chasing team, there is always pressure of a good start even if you are chasing 150. The wicket did deteriorate later on because the spinners did got a lot of turn,” she added.

Mithali said they would reflect on their batting collapse and come back stronger in the upcoming matches.

“It is important to continue the momentum but it is again not everyday that same batters will score runs and I am happy that someone has stood up to get those runs,” she said.

“It is important that we got this opportunity to reflect on our batting order because the next matches are equally important for the team.”

Her counterpart Sana Mir was happy with Pakistan's bowling effort but rued their poor batting performance, which according to her cost them the match.

“This has been our best bowling performance against India in ODIS. In the last few overs we leaked 10 or 20 runs, but otherwise it was a very good bowling performance. With a better batting performance we could have had a better game,” she said.

“Diana Baig brings a spark to the team (in the field), she's a wonderful athlete and the way she bowled, as a captain I'm very proud. Nashra (Sandhu) was our key bowler in the qualifiers before coming to the World Cup and again she proved to be really good today (Sunday).

“I think the top order played too many cross-batted shots and against a good bowling line-up, there's no future if you play cross-batted shots,” Sana said. India will take on Sri Lanka in their next game here, while Pakistan will face Australia at Leicester on Wednesday. NEW DELHI: Ravi Shastri on Monday formally applied for the position of Indian cricket team's head coach, making him a front-runner for the highprofile job.

A senior BCCI official confirmed that Shastri has submitted his application ahead of the July 9 deadline. The interviews will be conducted the following day by the Cricket Advisory Committee (CAC) comprising Sourav Ganguly, VVS Laxman and Sachin Tendulkar.

Another notable application was that of former West Indies opener Phil Simmons, who has also coached the Caribbean team apart from Ireland and Afghanistan (as a consultant). “Yes, Ravi has applied and so has Phil Simmons,” a BCCI official confirmed the development. The others who have thrown their hat into the ring are Virender Sehwag, Tom Moody, Venkatesh Prasad, Richard Pybus, Dodda Ganesh and Lalchand Rajput.

Shastri, who has served as Indian team director from August 2014 to June 2016, shares a healthy rapport with the players including captain Virat Kohli. It remains to be seen how the CAC will con- sider Shastri's case considering Ganguly backed Kumble over the former India all-rounder when the coach was picked last year. Irrespective of who gets the job, it will be big shoes to fill in considering the team did well under Kumble, winning the Test series against the West Indies, Australia, England, New Zealand and Bangladesh before reaching the Champions Trophy final last month.

However, serious differences between captain Kohli and coach led to the acrimonious exit of Kumble. During Shastri's tenure, India won limited overs away series against England in 2014, reached the semi-finals of the World Cup and World T20 (2015 and 2016 respectively), won away Test series against Sri Lanka, home series against SA and T20 away series against Australia. NORTH SOUND (ANTIGUA): The pitch was slow and shot-making difficult but India batting coach Sanjay Bangar said these factors cannot cover up for the fact that batsmen “let the team down” in the lost fourth one-dayer against the West Indies here.

Chasing a modest 190 for win, the Indian willow-wielders found the going tough on a two-paced Antigua pitch to lose the fourth ODI by 11 runs and allow the West Indies to stay alive in the five-match series.

India, however, lead the series 2-1 after the first ODI was abandoned due to rain.

“It (the pitch) kept getting slower and shot-making wasn't really easy. Those have been the nature of wickets we have seen so far. But we didn't really bat to our potential.

It was a gettable score. I just felt the batsmen let the team down,” said Bangar.

“We encountered this situation even in the previous game when we lost a couple of wickets in the first 10 overs but we still managed to get 260 on a wicket which was very very damp. Suffice to say we have been playing on wickets which have been difficult.

“Credit to them (West Indies). They executed their plans really well but I just felt it was a very very gettable score,” he added.

Chasing the modest target, India lost three wickets, including that of Virat Kohli, inside the 50-run mark before Ajinkya Rahane (60 off 91) and Mahendra Singh Dhoni (54 off 114) steadied the ship with a crawling but crucial 54-run stand for the fourth wicket.

But India couldn't finish off the chase as they witnessed another collapse towards the end with Kedar Jadhav, Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja and Dhoni departing in quick succession.

“The plan was for somebody to bat deeper into the innings. That's what Ajinkya did till he got out. Till that time we were on course but suddenly we lost couple of wickets. Those wickets in the middle overs actually pushed us back. The run rate just kept on creeping higher and higher,” Bangar said at the post-match press conference. The batting coach rued the shot-selection of Indian batsmen and said the platform was ideal for the lower middle-order to prove its worth.