Indian captain Harmanpreet Kaur claimed that the pitch used in India`s Women`s World Cup encounter against Pakistan was not easy to bat on and that it was difficult for the batters to get going. The Women in Blue were bowled out for 247 in their batting innings and it seemed like they left a few runs on the field.
Harmanpreet shed light on how the rain over the past few days has impacted the pitch and how it has led to the ball gripping a bit more than usual due to the moisture. She revealed how the plan was to keep wickets in hand in the end and then explode. While Richa Ghosh managed to play a fine cameo, other Indian wickets kept tumbling around her. On this, here`s what Harmanpreet had to say after the match:
“To be honest, it wasn`t an easy pitch to bat. We just wanted to bat longer and see how many runs we can get. When we played here in the tri-series [in May], the pitches were different. But with the rain over the last two days, there was a bit of a hold on the pitch. The key was to keep wickets in the end so that we could execute.”
Harmanpreet Kaur also shed light on the fielding effort and how India missed several chances and gave away too many runs in the field. On this, she stated:
“We let ourselves down on the field, we got so many chances which we unfortunately dropped, but in the end, when you win, you feel happy. There are a lot of areas to work on, but right now I`m happy that we won this game. We just want to go with that momentum. We go back to India now, where we know how the pitches will play. Let`s see what the best combination is that we can come up with and how we can improve day by day.”
Pakistan captain Fatima Sana also after the match shed light on the mistakes her team made across department. She felt restricting India to under 200 would have been a great total and opined:
“In the powerplay, we gave a lot of runs. In the death overs, we also lost some extra runs. When I bowled, it felt like it was seaming. If we had restricted them to under 200, it would`ve been a good total for us. I still believe that today`s batting lineup was good because they are pure batters in the top five. They need to step up. Just need to explore yourself because in batting, we need long partnerships. Have to assess conditions and adapt to it.”
(With ANI Inputs)