Women’s T20: India need to regroup quickly against a young Pakistan

An insipid batting performance, leading to a big defeat to New Zealand, is not quite the start that Harmanpreet Kaur & Co would have bargained for in the ICC T20 Women’s World Cup in Dubai. They have just a day to regroup themselves for the must-win tie against neighbours Pakistan on Sunday — which is likely to see a decent attendance at the Dubai International Stadium.

It’s a tricky group that India find themselves in with the three remaining matches against Pakistan, Asia Cup champions Sri Lanka and the six-time champions Australia. The format in this 10-team event allows for the top two finishers from as many groups going through to the semi-finals, which means the 2020 finalists need to win all three games from here and also keep a watch on the rivals.    

Meanwhile, the younger Pakistan team led by allrounder Fatima Sana will be no pushovers for India. The green shirts have upset the Lankans on the opening day of the tournament and will certainly enjoy a good support from a holiday crowd of expats.

Jemimah Rodrigues, the effervescent India batter, admitted it was not their day but they needed to move on from the unexpected result quickly.  “Today would be the game we’d like to forget. This is a World Cup and we need to keep moving on and picking ourselves up, we can’t say stuck on this game. We need to pick ourselves up and show the character of this team,” said Jemimah, who herself fell to poor shot selection soon after getting to double figures.

“Going forward, I think we need to have the right approach because the tournament’s not over,” Rodrigues said in the post-match press conference. “We need to take some positives from this game and a lot of learnings from this game.”

However, such ‘positives’ were hard to come by after a shoddy batting performance which saw the Women in Blue stop at 102 all out chasing 161, while the seasoned skipper’s poor run in major tournaments continues to be a worrying trend. Promoted to number three so that Harmanpreet gets enough deliveries to build her innings, she fell for 15 runs.  

Umpiring controversy

A massive controversy, meanwhile, erupted during the first innings when New Zealander Amelia Kerr was called back after being run out, leading to a heated debate between Harmanpreet and the match officials. The umpires declared the ball ‘dead’ and did not consider the run-out legal, a decision which sparked a major debate in cricketing circles.

However, India were on the backfoot early on in the game as New Zealand’s openers got off to a brisk start, but Rodrigues says the pace of the Kiwis’ scoring did not come as a surprise. “We knew that any team will come hard at us, and I think they came out with a lot of intent. We did create opportunities, but unfortunately we didn’t make the most of them,” she said.

India’s remaining fixtures

India v Pakistan on Sunday 6 October; Dubai

India v Sri Lanka on Wednesday 9 October; Dubai

India v Australia on Sunday 13 October; Sharjah