Women’s T20 World Cup: Harmanpreet Kaur and Jemimah Rodigues© AFP
Former India captain Mithali Raj has made an interesting comment on whether Indian women’s cricket team needs a change in captaincy after their Women’s T20 World Cup exit from the group stage. It was first time under Harmanpreet Kaur’s long captaincy tenure that India failed to qualify for the knock-outs of the ICC mega event, extending the team’s title-less run in world events and putting serious questions over her future in the team as captain. Mithali Raj was asked, “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.”
“It’s up to BCCI and the selectors to take a call but If they are looking to change this would be the ideal time because if you delay more then we have another World Cup on the horizon (two years) . If you are not doing now, then don’t do it later. Then it is too close to the World Cup. Smriti is there of course and can be a choice to consider for the selectors (has been vice-captain for long) but I personally think someone like Jemimah, she’s 24, she’s young, she will serve you longer in the T20’s and she’s someone who I feel on the field gets that energy. She speaks to everybody. I was very impressed by her in this tournament,” Mithali Raj told news agency PTI.
“Despite playing those cameo roles, she never could convert her starts, but she is someone who really made an effort to build a momentum if there was no momentum and if there was a momentum she tried to carry that momentum.”
She was also asked when the loss to New Zealand hurt the team more compared to defeat against Australia.
“We surprisingly took time to adjust to the slowness of the wicket. Unlike an ODI World Cup, it is a short tournament, you don’t have a lot of time to adjust to the conditions. Someone like Sophie Devine was able to score that many runs against us and she is not even used to playing on slow tracks and also was a little out of form , meaning thereby we bowled poorly and fielded quite mediocrely,” he said.
She also said India’s batting strategy needs to be changed.
“We expect the openers to do well, we always expect Shafali to go big. But things have changed over the years, both the openers need to go well now , there cannot be over reliance on just one opener . Smriti is a terrific stroke player she should have the luxury in the team to bat more freely and rotation of strike should be a regular feature in the partnership,” she said.
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