Indian women’s cricket team pacer Shikha Pandey on Friday (June 2) said it would be unfair to blame any one department for their ongoing struggles in England while insisting the team needs to get into a “better rhythm” as a unit to get the desired results.
India has already lost the ODI series after losing the first two ODIs against England Women and the girls would be certainly aiming to win the third and final match on Saturday (July 3) in Worcester to gain some momentum ahead of the three-match T20I series starting on 9 July.
So far in the ODI series, Indian batters have struggled and not posted enough runs for the bowlers to defend, but Pandey believes that if one department fails, it's the bowlers’ responsibility to fight hard and back the batters, saying if her team gets all the three departments together, they will do well.
Pandey stated, “I wouldn't say batting is the main concern. I can give you a player's perspective, when I get into a game, we think about all the three aspects of the game together, so if the batters cannot really get us runs, it is us as the bowlers, bowling unit, we need to fight hard and back the batters.”
She further explained, “So, I wouldn't say that just that one department of the game is lagging, it is probably if we can get all the three (departments) together, and the day we have all the three departments of the game going well for us, we will be doing well. I would say together as a team we need to get into a better rhythm.”
Hailing Harmanpreet Kaur and Smriti Mandhana, she noted: “We all know how good batters they are. It is just one innings that they need to get under the belt and we are all backing them and I am sure in the next few games, or in the next game itself they both will be back and help the team to win the game.”
On India Women’s scoring rate, the all-rounder said: “I mean, it is not that it is an alien concept, we still talk about it. I mean, at the very outset, if you actually go to see it is a stat, and it is something that we are working towards. We want to be still going ahead and playing a fearless brand of cricket and we are working towards it and I am sure this is kind of a build-up to the World Cup next year and in the games ahead, we will have a positive attitude and we will look to score runs for the team to win.”
The 32-year-old further added, “I think we did pretty well in all the three departments in the second game and we are catching up. Considering that it is a multi-format series, going ahead if we win all the four games...we are not regauging ourselves against them, backing our strengths. And we know as a team we are a very good team and when we play to our strengths and we have a good day, we know that we can beat any team in the world.”
Pandey signed off by saying on skipper Mithali Raj, “Mithali di is all well and she is being assessed by the medical staff and further news on her will be given by the BCCI.”
(With PTI Inputs)
