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Just a good knock away: Juhlan Goswami backs India Women middle order to deliver in 2nd ODI

India Women’s experienced fast bowler Jhulan Goswami believes that the Indian middle-order comprising of skipper Mithali Raj, and experienced batters Punam Raut and Harmanpreet Kaur, all of whom did not fire in the first game, would comeback in the second game. 

"They [Punam Raut, Mithali Raj, Harmanpreet Kaur] just need one good knock among them. Then definitely we'll be on a great platform. These things happen in cricket,” Goswami said in the pre-match press conference before the 2nd ODI between India Women and England Women on June 30 at the County Ground in Taunton. 

Praising the skipper who scored 74 in the first match, the 38-year-old Jhulan said, "Mithali has been very consistent. In the South Africa series also she batted well, this series also in the first ODI she scored runs.” “Harman needs one good knock and she'll be back. So we just need one good match from our middle order," she added. 

India Women lost the first game by eight wickets in just 35 overs, even after scoring more than 200 runs. Thus the Indian bowling came under scrutiny as well. Jhulan, who has more than 32 international wickets in her kitty too believes that the bowlers need to work on their skills. 

 "Well honestly speaking we have to come back as a bowling group strongly. Whatever score will be there on the board we have to come back as a unit," Goswami said. The tall pacer also said that medium pacers in particular need to click for India. 

"It's just that our bowling unit, particularly medium pacers unit has not fired as it should have, so things look a bit wayward but I'm sure we all have a lot of talent and we are going to come back strongly," she said. India played with three pacers, namely Pooja Vastrakar, Shikha Pandey and Goswami herself.

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ENG vs SL | 1st ODI: Steady Joe Root denies exciting Lankan fast bowling to take England 1-0 up

The only bright spot in an otherwise dull game for Sri Lanka was the fast bowling by the trio of Dushmantha Chameera, Binura Fernando and Chamika Karunaratne. The three of them got the five wickets among them in the match and presented Sri Lanka with a chance to get themselves into the game. However, it was not enough as Joe Root’s unbeaten 79 from 87 balls and a partnership of 91 along with Moeen Ali was enough to prevent any conversion of that chance by Kusla Perera’s men. England started their chase of 186 in quite a hurry as if both the openers Jonny Bairstow and Liam Livingstone wanted to finish the job as soon as possible and make their way to TV screens, to watch their football team face Germany. But that hurried approach didn’t last long as Bairstow chopped one from left-arm pacer Fernando. This was the second wicket as Karunaratne had already removed Livingstone. Soon the situation got tense as England were 80-4 after being 54-0. It could have been 80-5, had skipper Perera not dropped a regulation catch off Moeen Ali off the bowling of Chameera, who had already dismissed opposition skipper Eoin Morgan and Sam Billings and was spitting fire in Durham. Another chance went begging when Root was dropped on the third-man when he was at 36 and the England total at 110. But those were the last two chances as after them, both Moeen and Root made sure that their team reached home easily. Earlier in the day, after being forced to bat first, Sri Lanka deprived of their first choice batters were hit hard by England bowlers. Apart from skipper Perera’s 81 balls 73 and Wanindu Hasaranga’s 65 balls 54, none of the batters got going and only some late hits from Karunaratne managed to get the team to 185. Their collapse in particular was painful for any Sri Lankan cricket fan as, after recovery from 46-3, the team reached 145-3. But suddenly Hasaranga decided to play a no shot of a bouncer and was caught at square leg. Soon, from 145-3, it was 170-9 and within 25 runs, the Lankan team had lost six wickets. And thus came their downfall. Chris Woakes was the chief wrecker with four wickets and was awarded Man of the Match. The two teams would now move to The Oval in London for the second ODI.

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Split coaches in different formats are the way forward in cricket? Here's what experts say

Much like players opting for certain formats or are forced to do so in the wake of speciality in cricket, certain former players and experts believe that coaches too need to specialise in different formats. In a podcast former West Indies fast bowler Ian Bishop revealed that he thinks specialisation in coaching is almost knocking on the door. “The fact that we want all the best players playing all the formats and that poses problems for people like Moods (Tom Moody), who have the task fo making players succeed in all the formats,” Freddie Wilde, author of the famous book Cricket 2.0 told Bishop on The Pitch Side Experts Podcast. Responding to that, Bishop also echoed his thoughts. “You read my mind, I was just going to end it with it. Moods, my heart goes out to you and I wonder, It’s no surprise there seems to be a specialisation in even in the coaching ranks apart from the few very best who are able to coach across formats,” said the man with 279 international wickets. “Given the demands and multiplicity of the skills that one had to bring to the table, and even to the commentators,” Bishop added, indicating that doing everything in all three formats for all people involved with the game is getting relatively difficult. Earlier, Darren Lehmann, former Australia coach had propagated the multiple coach theory or split coaching. “I think split coaches is the way to go in India as well as here[England]. You just can’t be away for 200 days a year. It’s too much for the family and it’s too much pressure on a single coach,” Lehmann had said on a podcast with Michael Vaughan. “I think to get longevity out of your coaches you have to have split roles,” he had added.