Ban vs Ind – 5th WT20I – Harmanpreet Kaur impressed with India’s composure in 5-0 win

Admin May 9, 2024

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Ban vs Ind – 5th WT20I – Harmanpreet Kaur impressed with India’s composure in 5-0 win

Harmanpreet Kaur said she wants to carry the “calmness” shown by the Indian players in Sylhet when they thrashed Bangladesh 5-0 in the T20 World Cup when the team returns there after five months.

Unlike the last time these two teams met in Bangladesh, when Harmanpreet was in the news for the wrong reasons after India’s 2-1 win in July 2023, there were several positives for India to take home. Apart from the fifth T20I when Bangladesh were briefly in the game, they were all one-sided contests.

“The calmness shown by all the players in the series is something I would like to take to the World Cup,” said Harmanpreet after winning by 21 runs on Thursday. “There was calmness when we were batting, throwing the ball even on the field even though we made mistakes [today]we know how we can improve, and in the next one month, we will work hard on that.”

The Indian captain’s exit from a small position has been one of his biggest takeaways from this series. Harmanpreet had six single-digit scores in the white-ball series against Australia in December-January. Against Bangladesh, he scored 30 or more in three of the four innings and remained unbeaten in six of the other. Apart from him, Shafali Verma and Smriti Mandhana also had two scores of more than 30 in the low-scoring series. DD Hemalatha, who was back in the team after 15 months, used her 3-hitting credentials, a role Jemimah Rodrigues – who missed the series due to a back niggle – has made her own in recent times.

In football, Radha Yadav took ten wickets in five matches, making a strong case in her comeback series after being dropped from the national team following a poor performance in the T20 World Cup in February 2023. She was also Man of the Series for taking the most wickets in these five outings. Deepti Sharma, with her experience, excelled at the catch, conceding less than five runs an over while Shreyanka Patil took four wickets in three matches. Asha Sobhana, who was making her debut for India in the women’s T20Is at the age of 33, did well in her two matches to take four wickets at 6.14.

Leading up to India’s first away series of the year, all these players had impressive outings in the Women’s Premier League and Harmanpreet was quick to combine their performances in Sylhet with the confidence, momentum and form they gained during the T20 tournament at home.

“The WPL gave our players a lot of confidence,” he said, “because the way most of us played in the WPL, we improved our game during that time, and those results give results here. We just need to keep doing the right things, and the results will come.”

India’s next assignment will be a multi-series series against South Africa at home in June-July. They will then travel to Sri Lanka for the Asia Cup which will be played in the T20 format before the T20 World Cup in October. Hamanpreet hopes India will be able to play their “best cricket” when they return to Sylhet for the World Cup opener against New Zealand on October 4.

“Definitely, this tournament will give us a lot of confidence, [playing] in some cases it will definitely help us. Whatever we have learned here, we can take that to the World Cup. We are working really hard on that. I hope that in the World Cup, we will be able to do whatever we can do. I know our team is very strong and hopefully we will play our best cricket.”

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Admin May 9, 2024

0 0 2 minutes read