The Indian women’s cricket team skipper Mithali Raj said on Saturday that the injury to dashing opener Smriti Mandhana was a big blow to the team, which is leaving for Colombo for the ICC Women’s World Cup 2017 qualifiers from February 7.
Speaking to The Hindu at the ACA Indoor Stadium at Mangalagiri where she is training, Mithali said it was unfortunate that Smrtiti suffered a knee injury during the Big Bash in Australia when she was settling down to the role of an opener along with Deepti Sharma comfortably.
“As it is a ligament tear, it will take some time for her make a comeback. I hope she will be ready for the World Cup in June. We want to try out Thirush Kamini with Deepti for the opener’s slot,” she added.
Mithali said it has become imperative teams to score more than 200 in women’s internationals. “If we want to really to do well in the World Cup, we should learn to post more than 200 as we will be playing powerful teams like Australia, England, West Indies and New Zealand.”
She said the game-plan will be to play dominating cricket in the qualifiers. “Our confident swelled when we defeated West Indies 3-0 at Mulapadu in November. Remember West Indies is one of the top teams in the world.”
Mithali added the qualifiers were an opportunity to work on team composition. “All the trial and error exercises will be carried out in the tournament.”
She felt it was the right opportunity for the players who were out-of-form to regain confidence.
Mithali agreed that the spinners did well for India and they even excelled on tracks which were not spinner-friendly. “Spin is our strength and they got us more wickets. As Sri Lankan wickets will be spinner-friendly, they have an important role to play.”
Mithali is of the opinion that Sri Lanka conditions are not suitable for the World Cup which will be held in England during June and July.
On the batting front, Mithali said earlier India was dependant on one or two players, but now with players like Harmanpreet Kaur, Veda Krishna Murthy, Jhulan Goswami, and Shikha Pandey pitching in with big scores, the team looked compact on paper. “The need of the hour is to show our strength on the field.”
The Indian team will reach Bengaluru for a coaching camp from January 24.
