India Women’s captain Harmanpreet Kaur blamed the time away from the field for the loss in the first T20I of the three-match series against England. The series is being played at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai.
The first match was played on December 6, 2023 and saw England put,ting up 197/6 after being asked to bat first. Danni Wyatt with 75 and Nat Sciver-Brunt with 77 were the stars with the bat, while Amy Jones made 23 in 9 balls.
Renuka Singh took 3/27 and Shreyanka Patil took two wickets on her T20I debut for India.
In response, Shafali Verma made 52 runs, while Harmanpreet Kaur (26) and Richa Ghosh (21) were the other contributors. However, India fell way short of the target, scoring 159/6 in 20 overs. Sophie Ecclestone took three wickets as England women won by 38 runs and went 1-0 up in the series.
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Speaking at the post-match presentation, Harmanpreet said that the bowlers would learn from their performance and improve before the T20 World Cup.
"Yeah. We needed to bowl according to the plans. The bowlers will learn from it and we will improve before the ICC World Cup. I know it’s a tough game but I know the bowlers will learn from it. Well, we know they are good batters. They have played good cricket for so many years. We have had some changes in the bowling lineup but we will come up with better plans," said Harmanpreet.
The Indian captain also said that time away from the field also affected the team’s performance and that they needed to back themselves while chasing big scores.
"Playing after a long time, I was expecting some good performance from the players. But it happens if you are away from international cricket for some time. We just needed to back ourselves while chasing. We were looking forward to a good start. But after losing a couple of wickets, we got a partnership but the last ten overs didn’t go our way,” the Indian skipper added.
The second T20I will be played on December 9, Saturday.
(ANI inputs)
