Long season ends with Test highs for Muzumdar’s angels

PTI

Navi Mumbai, January 10

India women’s head coach Amol Muzumdar has said the Test wins at home against England and Australia were the “highest point” for his side during the gruelling season, where India also lost seven out of nine white-ball games.

The coach also did not agree that skipper Harmanpreet Kaur was out of form with the bat despite six consecutive single-digit scores, while conceding fitness, decision-making and DRS calls were areas of concern for the side.

India lost the T20I series to England 1-2 before going down to Australia 0-3 and 1-2 in ODIs and T20Is, respectively, but they excelled in the longest format, winning the one-off Tests against the two sides by big margins.

“The biggest positive is the girls have responded really nicely in all the formats. Whether it was Test cricket — we played Test cricket after nine years in India — not many had played red-ball cricket till then. Those two Test matches were the highest point,” Muzumdar said after India lost the third and final T20I to Australia by seven wickets on Tuesday.

Having taken charge of the team shortly before the start of the home season, Muzumdar conceded the players need to work on their fitness and fielding, which was exposed in the white-ball matches.

“We really need to, as I said earlier, focus on our fielding and our fitness. Hopefully, in the following months, I will get a chance to work on it,” he said. “Those are some areas where we have identified as a group that we need to raise the bar,” he added.

Muzumdar added that India also need to work on their decision-making skills as well as DRS calls.

“It’s just that we need to get used to it and we need to get better at it. With the (upcoming WPL) games, even if they (players) get used to taking it in the WPL, probably we might have a better understanding of the DRS,” he said.

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