Kolkata : Indian legend and former captain Mithali Raj has expressed her disappointment over the horrible group stage exit of Indian team from ICC Women’s T20 WC 2024. She lashed out saying she hasn’t seen any improvement in this team for past 2-3 years.
India under Harmanpreet Kaur lost to out of form New Zealand in their 1st Match of the tournament. Even after winning against lower ranked Pakistan and Sri Lanka, they lost to world beating Australia and got knocked out.
Following this, Mithali Raj lashed out and expressed her discontent over the team’s overall performance.
Assessing the team’s performance she said that even after having chances and taking the game deep they didn’t win in the must win game. In last 2-3 years, she hasn’t seen any growth in this team & lacked preparation and performance for defeating the world beating sides.
She said, “If I talk about the Australia game, it was a match to win. I thought at some point we had a chance but it seemed like we are following the same template against Australia. Taking the match deep but falling short eventually. It’s not working. She talked about South Africa as an example of growth, who’ve qualified for Semi final but Indian team didn’t grow.
I feel that in the last two, three years, I’ve not really seen any growth in this team, in the sense like, I mean, beating the best side is what you always prepare for but it seems like we are saturated in the sense we are beating other teams and we are pretty happy in that.Every other team has shown growth despite limited depth, a case in point being South Africa. We have not”.
She pointed out the factors of India team’s surprisingly lack of adjustments on slow tracks compared to the likes of New Zealand and other overseas nations who’re not habituated on it & inconsistent Batting order with too much dependence on openers as major reasons for India’s losses.
She said, “Surprisingly, we took time to adjust to the slowness of the wicket. Unlike an ODI World Cup, it is a short tournament, you don’t have a lot of time to adjust to the conditions. Someone like Sophie Devine was able to score that many runs against us and she is not used to playing on slow tracks. We were not quick enough to adjust”.
She continued, “We expect the openers to do well, we always expect Shafali to go big. But things have changed over the years. If both the openers go well, then we always get stuck in middle overs. That has been our story.
And then we try and make up in the end. The the power play and the death overs is where we do well, but in the middle overs, we’ve not found ways to get better.I was doing commentary in the Asia Cup. To be very honest, I didn’t know that, what was happening. I’m sure they were aware that Asia Cup is the last series of matches that they’re going to play before the World Cup.
When you know that this is the last game time that you’re going to have before you enter the big tournament you do at least 70 percent of your planning or 80% of your planning.
Like who your number 5 and number 6 is, these are people who would walk in a particular situation. But there it seemed they were playing only for that tournament. It didn’t seem like it was anywhere closer to… what we got to see in the World Cup”.
Mithali also pointed out the fault of not trying or not giving enough opportunities to the bench strengths in matches prior to World Cup and held this reason as one of the factors for dismal outing. The former skipper compared the Men’s team to Women’s team in terms of giving opportunities to bench strengths in various series as a result of which the former achieved lots of success.
She said, “We could have given more opportunities to the bench against lower-ranked teams in Asia Cup but we didn’t. Why does the men’s team do well? Because, immediately after a big series or a big tournament, they’re trying others. If we are talking about depth then when are we giving them chances?”
Mithali also opened up on the fact of changing captaincy and passing the baton to some younger players from Harmanpreet Kaur. Kaur has captained India since 2018 T20 WC but the nation is yet to taste success. Mithali thus took the names of Smriti Mandhana and Jemimah Rodrigues (especially) since youths can serve as a change and long term. Jemimah according to Mithali brings momentum and energy on the field, thus a probable and best candidate for future captain according to her.
“If the selectors decide to change, I would go for a young captain. This is the time (to change) if you delay more then we have another World Cup on the horizon. If you are not doing now, then don’t do it later. Then it is too close to the World Cup.
Smriti is there (has been vice-captain for long) but I think someone like Jemima, she’s 24, she’s young, she will serve you more. And someone who I feel on the field gets that energy. She speaks to everybody. I was very impressed by her in this tournament.
Despite playing those cameo roles, she never could convert her starts, but someone who really made an effort to build a momentum if there was no momentum, and if there was a momentum, she tried to carry that momentum”.
Indian team is set to visit Australia and this can be a fresh start to the team if they decide any changes.
