India captain Harmanpreet Kaur was delighted about India notching up their second straight win at the Women’s World Cup in Colombo on Sunday, beating neighbours Pakistan by a huge 88-run margin to reassert their dominance. In the process, India also extended their head-to-head lead against Pakistan to 12-0, once again proving that the Pakistan team does not deserve to be called India’s rivals. Speaking at the post-match presentation ceremony, Harmanpreet also sent a message ‘back home’ that won several hearts.
“Very happy, very important game for all of us, and I’m sure everyone back home is happy as well,” Harmanpreet said at the post-match presentation, hinting at how important the victory was for the team, especially considering the political atmosphere between the two countries.
India’s lower order once again came to the rescue after Richa Ghosh played a blistering 20-ball 35* run cameo. Her belligerent stroke play towards the end powered India to a competitive 247, from a point where the Harmanpreet-led side was struggling at 203/7.
Before Richa applied the finishing touches, Pratika Rawal (31), Harleen Deol (46), and Jemimah Rodrigues (32) anchored the innings, which kept the scoreboard ticking. Kranti Gaud, a 22-year-old Indian speedster, was adjudged Player of the Match for her figures of 3/20, which included the wickets of Sadaf Shamas and Aliya Riyaz inside the first ten overs. Her sizzling opening spell put Pakistan on the back foot.
“To be honest, it wasn’t an easy pitch to bat. We just wanted to bat longer and see how many runs we can get. When we played here in the tri-series [in May], the pitches were different. But with the rain over the last two days, there was a bit of a ‘hold’ on the pitch. The key was to keep wickets in the end so that we could execute,” Harmanpreet said after the match.
While Richa played a starring role with the bat, the rest of the night took a drastic turn when she kept wicket. While keeping wicket, she dropped a staggering four catches and made a couple of judgment errors with the DRS calls. Even during the ODI series against Australia during the build-up to the tournament, Richa was culpable for spilling three chances.
Apart from Richa’s nightmare with the gloves, a couple of misfielding errors allowed a couple of boundaries, which summed up India’s sloppy fielding effort. Harmanpreet was quick to highlight fielding as the area that India needs to address quickly before facing South Africa and Australia on Thursday and Sunday, respectively.
“We let ourselves down on the field, we got so many chances which we unfortunately dropped, but in the end, when you win, you feel happy. There are a lot of areas to work on, but right now I’m happy that we won this game. We just want to go with that momentum. We go back to India now, where we know how the pitches will play. Let’s see what the best combination is that we can come up with and how we can improve day by day,” Harmanpreet added.
With ANI Inputs