When Team India faces Sri Lanka in the Women's Asia Cup final on Saturday (October 15), they have a chance to regain dominance by winning the tournament for an unprecedented seventh time.
Harmanpreet Kaur, the captain of India, said on Friday (October 14) that the ongoing tournament offered a good chance to assess their capabilities and try out different combinations before the T20 World Cup in South Africa the next year.
Despite the experiments, India's only setback was a loss to Pakistan as a result of an unusual tactic by the captain, Harmanpreet, and the coach, Ramesh Powar, going awry.
“This (Asia Cup) is such a platform where you can test your limitations, what type of cricket you want to play and that’s what we done in this tournament, always testing ourselves, putting us into pressure," Harmanpreet said in her press conference on the eve of the title-clash.
“We tried a lot of combinations because we have to do those things as the World Cup is around the corner."
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The most reassuring part of this tournament, according to her, is how every player has risen to the occasion and how the team has unearthed a new match-winner in every game.
“When we came to Bangladesh we discussed that every game we have to look for different match winners, we didn’t want to depend on one or two players. We wanted everyone to step up and win the game for the team and I am really happy that we are getting different match winners," she remarked.
“The most important thing is to stay positive and keep thinking what you can do better for the team. I don’t feel we need to think about too many things, just stay positive," she added.
The Women in Blue's captain stressed that despite a lot of expectations, they won't put themselves under pressure during the final.
“I think when you have set some standards there is lot of expectations ought from yo but its very important for us to just keep playing the good cricket we have done so far in this tournament and we want to continue doing that. We have created a great instinct but we have to be positive," she said.
(PTI INPUTS)
