Indian women’s team captain Harmanpreet Kaur admitted that Yastika Bhatia wasn’t able to connect the ball properly and the team thought that retiring the latter out and bringing an in-form Jemimah Rodrigues could work in India’s favour, but the move backfired.
Chasing 169, India lost Shafali Verma in the third over. Smriti Mandhana and Yastika then added 43 runs for the second wicket before Mandhana was dismissed by Freya Kemp in the ninth over.
Soon after Mandhana’s dismissal, the run-scoring slowed down and midway through India’s innings, Yastika was retired out for 36-ball 33, a knock laced with five boundaries.
Jemimah replaced Yastika in the middle but was dismissed for just one run, as India’s retire-out move backfired.
“Unfortunately, she
wasn’t connecting the ball well and we thought Jemi, after the way she batted in the last game, could come in and make an impact. But that did not work for us,” Harmanpreet said at the post-match presentation.
“We never thought this situation would come because Yastika batted really well in the first game and we expected her to continue. But that is cricket. Sometimes things click and sometimes they don’t,” Harmanpreet added.
Chasing 169, India were well positioned at 78/2 after 10 overs, but lost their way against the spin duo of Charlie Dean and Sophie Ecclestone, slipping to 142/9 and falling short of the target.
“I think we put pressure on ourselves. When we were getting runs, we should have kept rotating the strike. We played a lot of dot balls in between and that put us under pressure,” Harmanpreet said.
The Indian captain’s comments highlighted the crucial middle overs of the chase, where Dean and Ecclestone tightened the screws with disciplined lines and lengths. The pair combined to bowl 21 dot balls, stifling the scoring rate and increasing the pressure on the batters.
