Indian women face whitewash

Mackay (Australia), Sep 25

India’s under-fire bowlers will need to put up a much-improved show in the third women’s ODI as they face the ignominy of a clean sweep against an Australian team that is looking for its 27th win on the trot.

A marginal no-ball call on the final delivery of the second ODI, bowled by veteran pace bowler Jhulan Goswami, found India on the wrong side of the result in the second ODI. The match was a thriller but not being able to defend a total as big as 274, after having the home team on the back foot for the better part, doesn’t speak highly of Mithali Raj’s outfit.

In cricket, teams that snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in close games — as India did on Friday — end up losing both momentum and confidence in their next few games.

The manner in which Beth Mooney — who opened in the absence of Rachel Haynes — batted along with Tahlia McGrath and Nicola Carey to steal the win from India would hurt for a long time. And they could do it with ease, without any contribution from one of their best batters, Alyssa Healy, and the iconic captain Meg Lanning.

India’s bowling attack barring Jhulan, who is in a league of her own, hasn’t delivered for quite some time. A lot of it is due to the fact that the Indian cricket establishment has failed to find a worthy new ball partner for Jhulan after Amita Sharma left the scene a decade back.

Shikha Pandey is a hardworking cricketer but could never measure up to being a regular partner for Jhulan, and the likes of Mansi Joshi, Puja Vastrakar and Monica Patel also cannot inspire confidence. Niranjana Nagarajan was put in cold storage by the cricket system and Meghana Singh is still raw and requires time to deliver.

The spin department was India’s strength but stronger opposition teams have now got the measure of Poonam Yadav’s loopy leg-breaks and thus she has largely become ineffective. Deepti Sharma, at least in bowling, has been consistent but she is more of a restrictive bowler without skill-sets to run through a strong opposition. One could sense a bit of complacency in Poonam, who seemed to have taken her place for granted, knowing that there aren’t good enough replacements in the horizon. Ditto for Deepti, whose overall game hasn’t improved in the last four years since the 2017 World Cup. She still gets stuck in the middle overs where the team loses momentum, and this happens even after she has played in all the big T20 leagues across the globe.

If India lose this series 3-0, which seems likely, then they would have lost nine out of their last 11 50-over games, which isn’t the best preparation for next year’s World Cup in New Zealand.

India would be happy if Harmanpreet Kaur is available after recovering from her injury, but the Indian vice-captain has also been in poor form of late, so it is debatable if her return can make any difference. — PTI

Captain Mithali’s slow batting

How captain Mithali Raj, who is facing the heat because of her low scoring-rate, can now lift the team is the big question. She has scored a lot of half-centuries of late but save the one that came in an inconsequential win in England, those runs have merely added to her growing tally of 20,000-plus international runs without much help to the team. Mithali and Deepti Sharma are the two weak links in this batting line-up when it comes to scoring runs at a quick clip. They have in the past several games wasted an awful lot of deliveries, putting the other batters under pressure. It could be said that the Indian captain’s run-out after scoring 8 off 23 balls proved to be a blessing in disguise in the second ODI as Smriti Mandhana and Richa Ghosh then managed to up the ante.