India batter Jemimah Rodrigues said on Wednesday that the hosts are yet to put together a complete game but have still managed to find match-winners to start the ICC Women’s World Cup campaign with two wins in two matches.
After overcoming tough situations in Guwahati against Sri Lanka and in Colombo against Pakistan, India enter a tough stretch of fixtures, facing South Africa and Australia in Vizag over the next four days. While the top order hasn’t exactly fired in unison in the two matches so far, others have rallied around to bail the team out, with useful collective contributions taking them to eventually winning totals. Conceding that the perfect match is still to come from Harmanpreet Kaur’s side, Rodrigues pointed out India have managed to solve the problems in front of them.
“I feel if an opponent team is seeing us, they will know that we have batting till the end,” Rodrigues said during the press conference at ACA-VDCA Stadium ahead of South Africa’s challenge. “So maybe if one doesn’t click, the other is taking the responsibility. Like Amanjot took that time (in Guwahati), Deepti too. And last match we had Richa (Ghosh). I think how I would put it forth is that it’s scary for the opponents to know that we have not had our perfect match yet. But we are still on a winning streak. We are still waiting for that, you know, that perfect match to come. And I think such tournaments because it’s so long, it’s important to peak at the right time. But like I said, we have so much more confidence knowing that till the end we have batters and everyone’s a match-winner.”
When asked about the strike rate issue for the top-order batters, Rodrigues said that pitches in Guwahati and Colombo weren’t conducive for fluent strokeplay. “The conditions of both the matches were very different,” the Mumbaikar explained. “It was on the challenging side because I think in Guwahati there was a lot of turn and the Sri Lankan bowlers were bowling well. And the Pakistan match in Colombo, the pitch was under covers for I think 48 hours. When that happens, there’s a lot of sweating that happens on the pitch which causes the ball to grip a little more, stop and come. So, the first thing was that which we conveyed as a batting unit that we knew it was a 250+ score. Like 250 would be a fighting score, anything above that would be bonus because you’re not getting a 300 on those wickets. But yes. talking about the batting unit, we have been discussing how we can improve. There’s always a scope of improvement in every single game, and we are working on that, and I’m sure we’ll come out even better in the next games.”
After two relatively easy opponents to start the campaign with, things are about to get serious for India. But Rodrigues said the team are not looking too far ahead. “We are just taking one game at a time and we are not saying – oh, we are playing this team or this team, it’s just another game of cricket. As a batter, it’s simple. I have to react and play according to the merit of the ball. As a bowler, it’s simple. I need to bowl to my plans. What is in our control is how we prepare well with our plans and how we come out and execute that well. So, we are not thinking too much about – oh, we’ve not had the perfect game. No, we’re thinking that our perfect game is still yet to come. And when we have that kind of a mindset, I think it’s more of a motivation where we know that even though we didn’t have the perfect game yet, we’re still winning.”
Rodrigues also said that Amanjot Kaur – who missed the Pakistan match due to illness – is good to go once more, which means India have a selection head for Thursday’s match. Renuka Singh Thakur, who came in for Amanjot, had a good game with the new ball even though she went wicketless but Amanjot’s all-rpund abilitty would be crucial.
