Bengaluru: After suffering their second straight defeat in the 2024 Women’s Premier League (WPL), Gujarat Giants skipper Beth Mooney believes South Africa captain Laura Wolvaardt is in serious consideration to be drafted in the playing eleven, while adding that knee-jerk decisions won’t be made.
Gujarat had finished at the bottom of the table in WPL 2023 and in their start of the ongoing season, they find themselves again at the same position. In both of their defeats in WPL 2024, Gujarat have been let down by their batting – amassing 126 against Mumbai Indians and making just 107 against Royal Challengers Bangalore.
“In a short tournament, it’s tough to change that (eleven) unless it’s for a tactical reason. We’ve got Laura Wolvaardt sitting on the bench. She will come into consideration at some point in the next little bit. Just to give us more stability with the bat, most probably.”
“Just three days ago when we hadn’t played a game, we thought that was our best XI. It’s really tough to change it and make snap decisions based on results. You have to back the team that you picked and really boost the confidence of the players you’re playing. Otherwise, you will be chopping and changing all the time,” said Beth in the post-match press conference.
Gujarat’s rationale in using Veda Krishnamurthy and Harleen Deol at top of the order and in the middle-order hasn’t paid off yet. Against RCB, Harleen opened and Veda came in the middle-order, but none of them were able to resurrect Gujarat’s innings.
“In the first game, it was about Veda trying to take on the role of an aggressor up top. She’s done that in the past in domestic cricket. Tonight, with RCB fielding four spinners, we thought she might be able to use her skill set a little better in the middle-order. Given that they had a very deep spin attack. That was the rationale there,” said Beth.
Though Beth admitted chasing teams are at an advantage in Bengaluru, she feels it can’t cover up for Gujarat’s inability to adapt with the bat. “Maybe (there’s an advantage for the chasing team). If I’m being blunt, it can be a bit of an excuse for the team that’s batting first. Obviously, the conditions are in the favour of the bowlers if you win the toss. But it’s not so much that you can’t win a game batting first.
“I think in the first six to 10 overs you have to be disciplined with what your scoring opportunities are and what shots are on and assessing them very quickly and making sure that the dugout understands what the wicket is doing. Perhaps, we haven’t adapted as quickly and other teams haven’t adapted as quickly when they have batted first.
“Moving forward, you have to take a bit out of that and work out how to bat first on these wickets. Not a whole lot is going wrong for us right now, to be frank. It’s the nature of T20 cricket. You can be on the back end of some pretty good bowling and batting. But yes, in this match, we didn’t get enough runs on the board,” she said.
–IANS