“We were not up to the mark”: Harmanpreet Kaur

‘Women in Blue’ captain Harmanpreet Kaur remarked that his team was not up to par following India Women’s humiliating 38-run loss to England in the opening Twenty20 International match at Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai on Wednesday. During the post-match press conference, Kaur stated that these games will enable players to grow from their errors. She noted that the English team had a strong batting order and commended them. The captain went on to say that they will return stronger for the last two games of the series.

“They will learn quickly and we need these kind (of) games so that we can learn from our mistakes before the T20 World Cup. We know they have good batters and we had a few changes in our bowling department and we will come back stronger. We were not up to the mark and we need to discuss positives and come up with a positive attitude in the next game. After losing a couple of wickets, we had control over the game but the last 10 overs didn’t quite go to plan,”

England was pushed to 197/6 in the first inning by Danielle Wyatt (75 runs from 47 balls) and Nat Sciver-Brunt (77 runs from 53 balls). Renuka Singh led the Indian bowling assault and took three wickets. Twice was Shreyanka Patil the wicket-taker. The lone player for the ‘Women in Blue’ who stood out was Shafali Verma (52 runs from 42 balls). Despite his best efforts, Richa Ghosh (21 runs off 16 balls) was unable to establish a middle-order partnership. With three wickets under her belt, Sophie Ecclestone spearheaded the opposition’s bowling attack. Each of Glenn, Kemp, and Sciver-Brunt took one wicket.