Imitation is the biggest form of flattery, it is said. The Australian women’s cricket team doesn’t need any flattering from anyone — they are inarguably the best team in their sport and in conversations
for the greatest in all sports.
But, still, you don’t need to squint your eyes to see that attempts are being made to replicate their success by implementing their tried and tested tactic — of playing more all-rounders than specialists to bat deep and have bowling variety — in the ongoing 2025 Women’s World Cup.
Apart from England and South Africa, who have all-rounders at their number nine spots, India have been the prime example of the trend. In the past few weeks, they have gone from a team that used to have batting depth till number seven at most to one where all but two players can smack the ball big.
It’s probably a result of scars of war — even in the 2017 World Cup final, the target always looked chaseable but the batting just ran out of strength too soon for it to matter — but they look more Australian than ever. However, the results so far haven’t gone the way they intended.
After two good wins over Sri Lanka and Pakistan, India suffered two similar losses against South Africa and Australia. In both matches, it was hard to fault just one department: for example, against Australia, even a World Cup record score of 330 felt 20 runs short considering the start they had.
But, in both, the second innings came down to the bowling not having enough bite and wicket-takers to wrap up the defense. When Australia used the same idea to thwart multiple upset attempts against New Zealand and Pakistan, the irony became tangible: in trying to be as similar to Australia as possible, India made the difference between the two teams clearer than ever.
This has put them in a tricky spot. Should they accept that they haven’t put enough time into refining the idea and go back to playing the extra bowling option — say, Renuka Thakur for Harleen Deol — or continue to believe that when it clicks, they can go all the way to clinch the title?
News18 CricketNext asked former England men’s captain Nasser Hussain in the JioStar Press Room, ahead of the India vs England ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup India 2025 clash on October 19, what he thought of the trend and whether India should reconsider it.
“Yeah, you’ve got to be very careful,” he said. “It’s a good question, and it is definitely the trend in the tournament. You look at where people have got runs — it is down the order. For some sides, 50 overs is still a very long time, so they can’t go quite hard upfront. But you have to be careful comparing a team to Australia, because a lot of those cricketers down the order are genuine all-rounders. Annabelle Sutherland would probably get in just as a batter or just as a bowler. Ash Gardner, as you saw in the first game, was brilliant hundred. She’s a wonderful bowler as well. Elysse Perry — you go through their whole list. Alana King at number 10 gets a 50 against Pakistan here in Colombo.
“So if you are going to do that, you have to have two disciplines to get in a side. You can’t just bat anymore. You’ve got to bat and be brilliant in the field, or bat and bowl. You can’t just be a bowler. I think India have got that. Like I say, that first game against Sri Lanka — you look at those batters down the order, Deepti, Amanjot, Sneh Rana — they are proper cricketers for me. I think India aren’t far off,” he added.
While the tactics look the same, India has an all-rounder like Amanjot Kaur, who’s excellent but still finding her feet in international cricket as the fifth bowler in the World Cup, while Australia deploys seven-eight options every game, and an all-time great like Ellyse Perry hardly bowls anymore because she doesn’t need to.
India have all-rounders, but they are limited to the lower order as none of the top five are trusted enough. They have brought in depth, but unlike Australia, it hasn’t been bookended by quality bowling variety, which leaves the onus on the batting to always outdo the opponent.
Be fearless
‘Careful’ is only one side of the coin, too. In a reply to another question, Hussain said that if India have decided that batting-depth-over-specialist-bowlers is the way forward, they need to go all-in.
There’s no point playing like a side that believes in its ideas but is not confident enough. For instance, the ‘Australia’ thing to do when they were 155/1 in the 25th over against Alyssa Healy’s team was to send in Richa Ghosh or Deepti Sharma, but they maintained the batting order as it is, and coach Amol Mazumder said afterward that he doesn’t like tinkering with it much — in other words, he wanted to be a bit more careful.
If you rely on your batting so much, then the only solution is perhaps to be a bit more unhinged.
“If they’re going to play the extra batter and have Sneh Rana and Amanjot coming in at eight and nine, then you can go hard all the way through, and you can get an above-par score, and then your spinners and your seamers will have a role to play. So if there was one thing I would change is that if you are going to play the extra batter, then go harder,” Hussain said.
Usually, the answer to the dilemma of two difficult choices is to find balance. But for India, in the all-important game against England, the best way is to arguably pick a side and stick with it.
Catch India vs England in the ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup India 2025, Oct 19, at 3:00 pm, LIVE on JioHotstar and Star Sports Network.
