New Delhi: India Women’s team captain Mithali Raj said the ICC Wome’s World Cup 2022 campaign was a good learning experience for some of the lesser experienced cricketers in the team.
“There’ve been ups and downs like we’ve done well against the West Indies but we lost against England and Australia. And even New Zealand. So we mixed it up a little bit in the initial phase of the tournament. But I guess the way we made a comeback, even in today’s game the way the girls have responded, whether it is bowling or batting, I think they’ve done really well,” said Mithali at the post-match press conference after the match against South Africa.
“It was a good game overall, if we have to judge it from the crowd, from people who watched, the viewers and for the sport, but yes for the Indian team it’s the end of the road in the tournament. A lot of good things have come out of the tournament like we’ve got Yastika (Bhatia), Shefali (Verma) started to score runs. The spinners have done well. There will be areas that as a team we need to work on moving forward. But overall, I think we could have done better. We could have done better in the initial phases of the tournament.
“I think the future definitely is very bright looking at Richa [Ghosh], Yastika and we have of course, Sneh Rana – she made a comeback, we have Meghna (Singh) who’s in the stand by and these girls will definitely play in the coming years good standard of cricket and the way they get the exposure of playing different leagues and playing regularly with the best of the best in the world, I’m sure the team will shape up well for the future tournaments,” she added.
The skipper showered praise on vice-captain Harmanpreet Kaur for her efforts with the ball as well as the bat.
“Her performance was exceptional in today’s game, just not through her batting. When I gave her a ball, she came there to bowl – even her contribution in fielding was immense, I think very important run-outs and getting those crucial wickets and all-round performance. I think having senior players in events like this, to get the experience to play the most important game helps with the team,” Mithali said.
“I think there was a partnership between Laura and Goodall. I think that was something we managed to break but the most important couple of overs which I felt was when Tryon came in, and when the asking rate was around nine and she got it back to seven. And I think that that was a moment which tilted the match in their favour. We could have added more runs from the death overs when we batted. The spell Ismail had bowled in the last five overs, where the sort of start we got and the way we built the innings, we could have got many more runs having wickets in hand,” Mithali added.
