Not for the first time in the ongoing ICC Women’s World Cup was the Indian top order found wanting. If the home team has to get the better of the so-called SENA teams (South Africa, England, New Zealand and Australia), at least two of the top-five batters have to make big contributions. These sides bat deep, thus 15-20 runs above par score are needed to ward off their challenge. On Thursday, despite Richa Ghosh leading the home team’s revival with a late flourish, the total of 251 eventually felt a couple dozen runs short of denying the South Africans a come-from-behind win.
‘We can revive our fortunes’
Talking after the disappointing three-wicket loss, India skipper Harmanpreet Kaur accepted that the top batters were not performing up to expectations and needed to raise their game in the upcoming matches, especially against defending champions Australia here on Sunday.
“We didn’t take responsibility as top-order [batters]. We have to change things. We have to get good totals. It’s a long tournament, so there is always an opportunity to revive fortunes. It was a tough game, but we had a lot of learning [from this defeat]. We need to keep ourselves in a positive frame [despite the loss],” Harmanpreet said.
She further however insisted that there were a lot of positives for the team, going forward. “[It was a] tough game, both teams played really well. We collapsed while batting, but still got to 251. That was a big positive for us. We got the early wickets, but [Nadine] de Klerk batted really well. The way they batted, the pitch looked very different [in the second session]. But they deserve the win,” Kaur said.
Besides the batting woes, India were also found wanting with their bowling at the death, with pacers Kranti Gaud and Amanjot Kaur proving easy meat when up against hard-hitters Nadine de Klerk and Chole Tryon, who virtually snatched the win out of India’s grasps with their breathtaking power-hitting. De Klerk did accept that facing Indian spinners was tough, but they bided their time and took the game deep as they knew once the pacers were back, things could work in their favour.
India pacers leak runs
“The [Indian] spinners bowled really well. It was not easy to get them away. But we knew that pacers could be taken for runs if we took the game deep. I’m happy that we were able to achieve that. We have a couple of days off, and I just want to reflect on this and get ready for the Bangladesh game,” de Klerk said after bagging the player of the match award for her unbeaten 84 off just 54 balls. Coincidentally, the top-scorers of both the teams batted as deep as at No. 8, with de Klerk overshadowing Ghosh’s brilliant 94, much to the disappointment of a goodly crowd that had come to see India get the better of the Proteas.