Hindustan Times ST (Mumbai) - HT Navi Mumbai Live
‘Improving fielding, fitness should be our top priority’
INDIA’S 2022 WORLD CUP SKIPPER
CHANDIGARH: Last edition’s runners-up India made an early exit from the women’s 50-over World Cup in New Zealand, failing to make the semifinals. Skipper of the team, Mithali Raj, 39, opens up on various issues that led to the debacle.
Excerpts tured before the next World Cup. Fitness should be a priority. There should be system for constantly improving the benchmark in fitness and fielding.
The start of Women’s IPL next year should increase the talent pool. Rubbing shoulders with international players in the WIPL will give the domestic players lot of confidence. We have only to look at the kind of talent pool men’s IPL has generated for the Indian team.
But more than that, I am disappointed we could not play to our potential in the big games and we were not able to put up a solid team performance doing well in all three departments.
Teams that have done well at the World Cup had players who performed consistently, in five games out of seven. We were not able to show the same level of consistency either in batting or bowling.
National Cricket Academy (NCA) also recently conducted a Level 2 course for former international women players. Some of them are quite good and have good understanding of the game and women players. Definitely adding them to the India coaching staff will help the team.
In the New Zealand series, I did give Harman an opportunity to bowl in the first two ODIs but her economy was between 7-7.5. In the Australia game too, we played with five regular bowlers and I did ask Harman to warm-up as I wanted to bring her on but she said she can’t because of a stiff back. Sometimes too much is made out of things without knowing the facts.