After the emotions of the supercharged winning moments had cooled down a little bit after India’s world record run-chase in the semifinal against Australia in Navi Mumbai, captain Harmanpreet Kaur walked up to the broadcasters JioHotstar for an interview. In response to the first question on what shifted in India’s campaign to bounce back from three straight defeats, Harmanpreet gestured to head coach Amol Muzumdar standing to her left. “First of all, after losing against England, I didn’t say a word in the dressing room, only he was speaking,” she said sheepishly, and added: “Sir can tell you about it better.” Then both of them burst out laughing.
“OK, I’ll take over from here, Harman,” Muzumdar said. “Just had a little chat with the players.” Then Harmanpreet interjected, this time more animatedly pointing fingers, evidently imitating how the usually mild-mannered Muzumdar was not happy. “You! You should have finished the match.” Muzumdar added: “Yes, I did say a few things in the dressing room but it was in good spirit.”
“That day, sir was a little aggressive, in a good way,” Harmanpreet went on to add. “But everyone took it positively because we knew whatever he was saying came from a good place, and he was right. We all trust him completely, and his message came from the heart. After that, I spoke to all the players individually because I wanted to know how they were feeling. We knew what sir was expecting from us, And the way we lost that match wasn’t what the country was expecting from us. Everyone positively took that feedback, and you can see how the team played with that intent.”
After quipping that Harmanpreet doesn’t have to reveal everything in this interview, Muzumdar elaborated. “I think there was a shift after that England game; everyone was charged up. I could see the change. In fact, we spoke amongst the coaching group about that; that there was a little bit of a shift in when we practised the next time. There was a lot of energy, a lot of intensity. Not that it wasn’t present earlier, But you could make out there was a shift.”
The defeat against England marked the third straight match in the middle of the league phase where India failed to close out an advantageous situation. With just around run-a-ball required in the final 10 overs, and a well-set Smriti Mandhana and Deepti Sharma in the middle, India were cruising in Indore. But then Mandhana went for an ill-judged, mistimed aerial shot against Linsey Smith to lose her wicket; it triggered a collapse as the rest of the batting unit failed to take the side past the finish line.
With that in mind, Muzumdar was asked what his message was to the team, faced with a mammoth run-chase against the seven-time champions in a high-stakes match. “There were no big messages. We always told each other we need to finish well. We usually start well, but finishing has been our area to improve. Today was that day,” Muzumdar said. “We had written on the board inside the dressing room that we just need to get one more run than Australia.”
In her press conference, Jemimah Rodrigues revealed that the team was confident despite the daunting target because they had been here before. “Against New Zealand in 49 overs we had scored 341, against Australia in Vizag where we had scored 330. So, we knew that we’ve done it, even against this team. I felt with the way Australia started, they were 30 runs short – with the way they were going, with the start they got. And DY Patil is such a pitch, where any score is chaseable,” the match-winner said.
