Table toppers India Women will take on Sri Lanka Women in their fourth match of the ICC Women’s World Cup 2017. The Mithali Raj-led team, who are riding on the confidence of a nerve-wracking win against arch-rivals Pakistan have beaten SL in the warm-ups.
While speaking to the media ahead of the match, Harmanpreet Kaur said winning high intensity matches like the one against Pakistan gives confidence. “It was a good boost for us. We are looking forward to tomorrow’s game. I believe that there are still some areas that we need to work on and we are doing that and hopefully in the coming matches we will play good cricket and we will win matches for our team,” she added.
Earlier captain Mithali Raj had mentioned, “We will definitely look into the fact that we don’t lose wickets back-to-back because that puts a lot of pressure on the incoming batters as well as the team. We need to work on our partnerships as batters.”
Discussing the approach against SL who are still winless, Harmanpreet said, “Sri Lanka are a good side. They have good (players) like (Chamari) Athapaththu, who played a really good innings against Australia. We are not taking them lightly. We will go in (to the game) with the same momentum that we started with against England and then (carried while) playing against West Indies and Pakistan. I think it will be a good match for us and we have to win that to go further in the World Cup,” Harmanpreet said.
The spinners have performed for the team in the matches thus far. Speaking about the preparations, she said, “Everyone is experienced now. I know that England conditions are always good for pacers, but our spinners have been doing well for a long time. We have a lot of experience like Ekta (Bisht), Poonam Yadav, (and) Deepti Sharma are doing well in the last two-three years. Then we have Jhulan (Goswami) and the other two pacers who are doing well as well. We have a good bowling unit and we have confidence in them.”
Bisht who took a five-for against Pakistan said, “We had played a practice game against Sri Lanka and we assessed them. So, we will plan for them accordingly.”
The spinner who enjoys opening the bowling said that she has learnt from her previous experiences in England and international cricket. “Now I know that if I have to bowl against the wind where I have to pitch the ball and what I need to do and then how to bowl with the new ball or with the old ball. I had told them the tracks are bouncy and we have to focus on our variations. Line, length and variation will help,” Bisht said while discussing bowling in English conditions.
“During the camp in Mumbai we practiced the line and length we would have to bowl here and that has helped us,” she said.
Speaking about the bowling in English conditions, Harmanpreet observed, “The wickets are looking like batting tracks. On those type of tracks, you need to vary your pace. You can’t bowl on the same line and same length; same areas. You have to vary your pace and change your areas and that’s what we are doing right now and is helping us. And we will stick to it.”
