India captain Mithali Raj admitted that the Indian top-order has not been performing at par after the Women in Blue lost to New Zealand in their second match in the ongoing ICC Women’s World Cup 2022 on March 10, 2022.
Coming into this crunch match, India was high on confidence after beating Pakistan in their tournament opener. However, it was an indifferent performance from the team as they managed 198 in a chase of 260 runs with only 50 runs were scored off 20 overs in Hamilton.
"Our batting, especially the top and middle-order needs to fire because other teams are posting 250-260,” Raj said at the post-match presentation ceremony.
"We thought it was chaseable but provided we had the top order going. But back-to-back wickets put a lot of pressure because we didn't have batter who can take it deep. There was bounce and good carry off the surface but it was not a tough strip to bat on. Their seamers were hitting the right areas with the bounce, but it wasn't unplayable and we could have done better," she added.
While the batters were disappointing, the bowlers came to the party as Pooja Vastrakar took four wickets to stop the hosts from cruising to a huge total.
"Our bowlers have done well today and earlier as well. After the early wickets we got, the way they had a partnership I thought they'd get around 270-280. There was bounce and it got slower in the second innings," Raj observed.
Meanwhile New Zealand captain Sophie Devine called it a complete performance and said: "Really complete performance. We built partnerships throughout, (Amy) Satterthwaite was outstanding, we laid the platform and we knew it was a good score. Our bowlers were outstanding, didn't give them anything. We have different people putting their hand up in different phases of the game, that's what we want in the World Cup.”
(PTI inputs)
