After her team’s below-par performance in the first ODI against England in Bristol, skipper Mithali Raj on Sunday (June 27) said Indian women’s side needs to groom young pace bowlers for future.
Invited to bat first, the visitors played 181 dot balls to post a modest 201/8 in 50 overs, which the hosts chased down with 8 wickets in hand and 91 balls to spare.
See Also: Shafali Verma becomes fifth youngest to play all three formats after ODI debut
"Yes, we need to look into that aspect and keep on rotating strike," Mithali said about the dot balls during the post-match virtual press conference.
"We need our top-5 batters to get runs. We also need to understand that England seamers are very experienced. They know how to bowl in their conditions."
Reflecting on the performance of seam bowlers, the captain said: “It puts pressure (on the opposition) if we can get early wickets. If we don't get wickets from the seamers it puts pressure on the spinners.”
"So we need to groom fast bowlers other than Jhulan. They should learn on how to understand conditions and bowl well accordingly," she added.
Mithali Raj was the top scorer in India’s innings with 72 off 108 balls but her knock didn’t give the team an ideal total as batters failed to rotate strike and find boundaries to accelerate scoring rate.
"Our batting line up needs to fire at some point. Over the years we are far more comfortable chasing than posting targets. We need to work on that, we need to know how to get 250,” she said.
"But we just can’t go bang bang and lose wickets. We need to know when to push the acceleration and how to get that."
While Mithali hinted that there might be a few changes in the playing XI for second ODI, she also stressed on the importance of grooming players keeping in mind the 2022 World Cup.
"It is important to back players especially who has done well in the past. Sometimes it is a gamble to play stroke players. But we need to back players to groom them keeping the World Cup in mind.
"Apart from the captain, coach and support staff, the selectors also play a big part in that and we are in constant touch with them," she said.
"We will definitely look into the composition, a little bit shuffle in the batting order to get over the line."
The skipper is at the twilight of her career and she feels it is her duty to groom her replacement and future stars of the team.
"...when it comes to finishers we clearly don't have players for that slot who scored runs at the domestic level. We need to groom someone who shows potential in that area.
"I have got most of my runs in No. 3 slot but it is important to get batters in that slot. We need to have batters who can score runs. I am not going to play for long so it is my duty to groom players," Mithali commented on her decision bat at No. 4 instead of her preferred No. 3 slot.
(With PTI inputs)
