Harmanpreet Kaur also opened up about managing the workload of the Indian players.
Indian women’s cricket team captain Harmanpreet Kaur urged her teammates to bring the same energy and intensity they showed against England as they gear up to face Australia Women in the one-off Test, starting on December 21 at the Wankhede Stadium.
Recently, India Women dominated England, securing a record-breaking victory of 347 runs—the largest ever in terms of runs in women's cricket—at the DY Patil Stadium in Navi Mumbai.
Now, the Indian team is aiming to record their first Test win against Australia. The Australian women’s team will be without their former skipper and batting legend, Meg Lanning, who recently retired from international cricket, but Kaur warned the hosts against taking the touring side lightly.
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Harmanpreet Kaur said at the pre-match press conference in Mumbai: “The way we played the first Test (of the season), we want to carry the same energy into this one. It is very exciting, knowing Australia is such a good team and everyone wants to beat them.”
She added, “They have a balanced side and everyone has experience of all formats. We can't say Meg (Lanning) is not there and take them lightly. We just need to think what best we can do rather than thinking about how good they are.”
Speaking about managing the workload of the players, the Indian skipper noted: “When you are playing back-to-back Tests, it is important to recover and feel fresh. When you bat and bowl for three days – the likes of Deepti (Sharma), and Pooja (Vastrakar) who didn't get enough rest – we try to take care of their loads. They need to feel ready for the game and we made them train accordingly.”
Kaur concluded, “The ones who had lesser loads we pushed them hard in the nets to feel more confident. The more we feel fresh, the better it will be for us, because there is hardly (any) time to prepare. If there was a 10-12 day break, you can take 2-3 days off and again prepare yourself. We were lucky we had a fourth day against England and then just one day off. We tried to recover in that.”
(With India Today/PTI Inputs)