Mithali Raj laments lack of batting partnership, admits 'lot of work' to do in bowling

India Women were defeated in all departments of the game in the first game of the series against the Australian Women and the skipper Mithali Raj admitted that her side have to do a “lot of work”, especially in the bowling department. She conceded that their bowling attack is built around spinners, who have not found any rhythm and are not executing the plans on the field.

“Well, see, you don’t have plans, but again it is about executing it in the ground, sometimes the bowlers don’t get the rhythm, but there are times when you know they get the rhythm but the plan isn’t working. Yes, we have a lot to work in terms of our bowling department because, predominantly, we are spin attack and spinners are getting hit everywhere, so that is something we need to tweak in,” Mithali said at the post-match press conference.

India Women could manage only 225 runs in their quota of 50 overs while the batsmen failed to find any momentum in the innings. In contrast to their batting, the Australian Women plummeted the Indian bowlers to all parts of the grounds and won the game comprehensively in the 41st over.

Raj addressed the batting failure as well and said that India Women were looking at setting a target in excess of 250 runs but the big wickets of Shafali Verma and Smriti Mandhana didn’t help their cause. She emphasized that the lack of partnership in the lower middle order also derailed their batting momentum which could have lifted them to a defendable total.

“See, when you know the (kind of) batting line up the Australians have, anything closer to 250, is what we were looking at, but losing two wickets, especially batters like Shafali (Verma) and Smriti (Mandhana) in the power-play itself. So, it was important that the middle-order starts to compensate for that and build a partnership, that is what we did with Yastika (Bhatia), but again we didn’t get enough partnerships in the lower-middle as well,” Mithali added.

India Women have been scrutinised for their conservative approach while batting and watches of the game have said that they don’t play “fearless cricket” to put pressure on the opposition. Mithali disagreed with that idea and said that the girls should be focussing on building partnerships instead of chasing the “fearless” brand of the game, which she said would eventually come after they gain confidence at this level.

“We need to now have partnerships, rather than thinking about playing fearless cricket, the girls need to get down to developing some partnerships in the middle and that definitely will give them confidence at some point to play fearless,” she argued.

India Women are on the tour of Australia for a full-fledged series comprising of three-match long ODI series, a one-off Test match and a three-match long T20I series. The next game of the ODI series will be played on September 24 in Mackay.