Former India captain Mithali Raj on Tuesday attributed the national team’s lackluster performance in the Women’s T20 World Cup to the lack of growth in the departments over the past three years. It was the first time in Harmanpreet Kaur’s long captaincy tenure that India failed to qualify for the knockouts of the ICC showpiece, extending the team’s title-less streak in world events and raising serious questions over her future as captain. Speaking to PTI from Dubai, Mithali said the team’s downfall was a result of not getting used to the UAE conditions quickly enough, lack of role clarity in the batting department, untested bench strength and playing under steam.
Excerpts from the interview:
How would you rate India’s performance in the tournament?
If I talk about the match against Australia, it was a match to win. I thought we had a chance at some point but we seemed to follow the same pattern against Australia. Taking the match deep but ultimately falling short. It doesn’t work.
I feel like in the last two, three years I haven’t seen any growth in this team in the sense of like, I mean you’re always preparing to beat the best side but it seems like we’re fed up in the sense that we’re beating others teams and we are quite happy about it. Every other team has shown growth despite limited depth, South Africa being an example. We are not.
Do you think the loss to New Zealand hurt the team more than the loss to Australia?
Surprisingly, we took time to adjust to the slowness of the wicket. Unlike the ODI World Cup, it’s a short tournament, you don’t have much time to adjust to the conditions. Someone like Sophie Devine has been able to score so many games against us and she’s not used to playing on slow tracks. We haven’t been able to adapt fast enough.
Given the frequent changes in the batting order (Harmanpreet and Jemimah juggled between No.3 and No.4), would it be fair to say that there is a lack of role clarity in that department?
We expect the openers to do well, we always expect Shafali to make it big. But things have changed over the years. If both the openings go well then we always get stuck in middle overs. That was our story.
And then we try to improve at the end. The powerplay and death overs are where we do well, but in the middle overs we haven’t found ways to improve.
I was commentating on the Asia Cup. To be honest, I didn’t know what was going on. I’m sure they knew that the Asian Cup was the last series of matches they would play before the World Cup.
When you know this is the last playing time you’re going to have before you get into the big tournament, you do at least 70 percent of your planning or 80 percent of your planning.
Like who is your number 5 and number 6, these are people who would go in a specific situation. But they seemed to be playing there just for this tournament. It didn’t look any closer to… what we should have seen at the World Cup.
We could have given the bench more opportunities against lower-ranked teams in the Asian Cup, but we didn’t. Why is the men’s team performing well? Because immediately after a big series or a big tournament, they try others. If we are talking about depth, then when do we give them a chance?
A lot of work was done in the pitching department before the World Cup, but it did not yield the desired results. Would you agree?
Against Australia I was very disappointed to see, apart from Radha Yadav and Jamie to some extent, I don’t think there was anybody. So we can’t have only two players out of eleven being good.
In terms of fitness, we need to have a benchmark. Honestly, how much can you work per month? It’s something you do all year round. It’s not like right before the tournament, you have a camp and it’s just really going to show the difference on the field.
Harmanpreet Kaur has captained India in T20 World Cups since 2018 but the results have not come. Should the selectors move on from her and appoint someone younger?
If the selectors decide to change, I would go for a young captain. This is the time (to change), if you delay any longer then we will have another World Cup on the horizon. If you don’t do it now, don’t do it later. Then it’s too close to the World Cup.
Smriti is there (long-time vice-captain) but I think someone like Jemima, she’s 24, young, will serve you better. And someone I feel on the field gets that energy. She speaks to everyone. I was very impressed with her in this tournament.
Despite playing these cameo roles, she was never able to transform her starts, but someone who really made an effort to build momentum if she didn’t have momentum, and if she did, she tried to carry that momentum.
(Except for the headline, this story was not edited by NDTV staff and was published by a syndicated channel.)
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