The last few days have been grueling for the Indian women’s cricket team. After an embarrassing ODI series defeat to Australia earlier in the week, the team had to travel over seven thousand kilometers – from Perth to Mumbai – to prepare for the home T20I series against the West Indies, which starts at the DY Patil Stadium on Sunday.
Airplane-weary India captain Harmanpreet Kaur admitted on the eve of the series opener that it was difficult to prepare with such a short turnaround time. However, she dodged questions about the schedule, citing that it was out of her control.
After losing all three matches against Australia, Harmanpreet’s captaincy has come under the microscope and as the team looks to bounce back, they need to mend the weak links.
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Smriti Mandhana is coming off a remarkable performance – scoring four centuries in a calendar year in women’s ODIs – even though the overall batting department has not been at its best in critical situations and this is something that the team management needs to address.
“Getting through this patch is really hard. Coming back from Australia, we had good conversations on the flight and discussed how to start fresh against the West Indies,” Harmanpreet said.
While the fact that India have won each of the last eight T20Is against the West Indies in the shortest format since November 2019 will boost the team’s confidence, it needs to ensure that its batting department takes on more responsibility in the absence of Shafali Verma, who was not is being considered for the series even though he has scored 531 runs in 20 T20Is this year at a strike rate of 33.18 126.73. The captain, who has scored two fifties in the last two T20Is, has to anchor the middle order.
In a surprising decision, the selectors ignored fast bowler Arundhati Reddy, who just a few days ago had recorded the second-best 10-2-26-4 by any Indian in ODIs in Australia and handed out maiden call-ups to tp Nandini Kashyap and Raghvi Bist.
While Harmanpreet was confident that her team would bounce back under normal conditions, it won’t be easy as the West Indies go into the series with impressive statistics – having won nine out of 13 T20Is this year.
With captain Hayley Matthews stating that her team will hope to play “really good cricket” to tame India at home, the focus will be on the captain and young Qiana Joseph. The return of the experienced Deandra Dottin will boost the visiting team’s confidence ahead of an exciting series.
The match starts at 7:00 p.m
