Having won both their matches so far in the ICC Women’s World Cup, 2017, India will take on Pakistan, who are yet to register a win in the tournament on Sunday, July 2nd.
India return to Derby where they beat England in their opening game and are looking forward to playing in familiar conditions. “Derby is kind of a home ground for us. This is our second game (here) and we have two more games here. Since we have played our first game here against England we are pretty aware of how the wicket is here,” Mithali Raj said while addressing the media ahead of the match.
Speaking about the conditions the captain further mentioned, “The first game was good because it was warm. During the game against West Indies there was a lot of wind and it was cloudy so that does put a lot of thought into Duckworth –Lewis because just in case it rains.”
Discussing India’s approach to the forthcoming match against archrivals, Pakistan, Mithali said, “Honestly, this competition itself is open for anybody. We have seen amazing performances from different players and different teams. Though Pakistan has lost two games we definitely will not look overconfident against them tomorrow. We will look at it as one more game, one more opponent that we need to beat to climb the ladder to qualify for the semi-finals.”
When asked about India’s approach to the Pakistan spinners who had them in a bind in the World T20, the captain said, “That was a different format. It was a T20 format and in the one-day format India has always done well. We don’t really see them as Pakistan team, (but another opposition) because once you start understanding them as the team you need to beat because of the pressure and expectations surrounding the game I think you are adding more pressure on yourself. Why don’t we see them as (just) one more team (instead?), another game that we need to do well, we need to win to progress in the tournament. We definitely will look into the areas that have been concerning us and how we have performed in the past against Pakistan and we will have our own strategies in place for tomorrow.”
As they look forward to the game, India’s spinners have done well for the team and the batting especially by Smriti Mandhana and the skipper herself has been impressive. Lauding the opener’s performance which has been key to wins so far, Mithali said, “Smriti has scored runs even in our last series in England and it is good to see that she is amongst runs and it is indeed helping the cause for the team. We were indeed working on our opening pair and she seemed to be at ease playing in these conditions.”
The one area that India needs to focus more on and have done so is the fielding. “We have a fielding coach now and he has definitely worked on the catches with the players. We did have some fielding sessions in these two days in preparation for tomorrow’s game (July 2nd vs Pakistan).”
Speaking about the missed opportunities she added, “It happens in a game, catches get dropped (but then) you get a chance as a batter also at time as catches get dropped (when you are batting). But yes it has been a concern because in the two games we have dropped quite a few catches. The girls have worked on it. I am sure tomorrow the fielding department will look much better than in the last two games.”
While elaborating on the dropped catches and the conditions that may cause them, Mithali said that the team has worked to get this right. The one area in fielding department that India has done well in so far is run out and they will draw confidence from that.
“(Since we got the run outs) I see a lot of hesitation from the opposition batters to actually take those singles while in the past they could easily take a single, because they then knew that the India players are not very good at hitting the wickets. But now they are very hesitant to take those singles so that has come as a really good sign for the team, because all the players look forward to hitting the stumps and the ratio has improved from the past,” she added.
While there is always scope for improvement in fielding as the captain mentioned, India look to carry their winning momentum forward.
