Mumbai: After suffering a six-wicket defeat to England in the second T20I at Wankhede Stadium, India’s senior off-spin all-rounder Deepti Sharma believes one or two partnerships with the bat would have made the score a lot more different and that the pitch wasn’t much difficult to bat on.
Pushed into batting first, India’s batting failed to fire as they were skittled for just 80, their lowest women’s T20I score against England. The bowlers, though, took out six wickets, but England had chased down the paltry target to win the series, with the third and final game to be played on Sunday.
“It wasn’t a 70- or 80-run wicket; we could have scored a bit more, around 110-115. But it happens sometimes when conditions are not in your favour. You try to play well as a team but everyone can have an off day. We did not feel that since we could not do well in the first innings, we will not be able to make any impact in the second innings.”
“I think it was not difficult. We just had to play to the merit of the ball. We had a lot of positive takeaways but it was not as difficult. Had we built one or two partnerships in between, the score would have been a lot more different. We will see what we can take away to make it better in Sunday’s game,” said Deepti in the post-match press conference.
In defence of the small total, Renuka Singh Thakur again struck early by taking out England openers Danni Wyatt and Sophia Dunkley. Deepti, playing in her 100th T20I game, took two scalps, while Saika Ishaque and Pooja Vastrakar had a wicket apiece.
”After whatever happened in the first innings, we wanted to do better in the second innings as a bowling unit. We wanted to take the game as deep as possible and the bowlers did a good job in doing that. The bowlers did well since the opposition lost six wickets in their second innings. It was not easy for the batters and the bowlers deserve initial credit for pulling things back.”
”We have played such kind of matches in the past as well. We wanted to maintain a positive approach and keep close-in fielders as much as possible, that we would back each other up and not give up that easily. As I said previously, the bowlers did a good job in the middle overs,” concluded Deepti.
–IANS