India aims for complete performance in T20 series-decider against England
Harmanpreet Kaur and her teammates now have a chance of enjoying their first T20 series success after the 2019 away triumph against the West Indies.
Published : Jul 13, 2021 13:24 IST
The Indian women's cricket team would aim to put up a complete performance instead of relying on individual brilliance to topple a hurting England for its first T20 series victory since 2019 here on Wednesday.
Another impressive outing in the field and tight death over bowling from the spin duo of Poonam Yadav and Deepti Sharma brought India back from the dead in the second T20 on Sunday.
Harmanpreet Kaur and her teammates now have a chance of enjoying their first T20 series success after the 2019 away triumph against the West Indies.
England self-destructing from a commanding position also helped the visiting team level the series in Hove.
The host is unlikely to gift another match to India, which will need to excel in all departments to win the series.
While Shafali Verma was impressive at the top and spinners came to India's rescue later in the game, the middle-order and the pace department need to step up.
Harmanpreet, who promoted herself to number three and got the much needed runs, would be well served by doing the same.
Shafali had got the team off to a cracking start but the incoming batters were not able to maintain the momentum despite wickets in hand.
On the contrary, England batters kept going for their strokes despite loss of wickets at regular intervals.
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There is little point in saving wickets in the shortest format and India needs to be more aggressive in its approach to score a 160-plus total.
Pacers Shikha Pandey and Arundhati Reddy, who were all over the place on Sunday, will have to be much more accurate.
England leads the multi-format series 8-6 and therefore can't lose it. Skipper Heather Knight was expectedly gutted after losing the game from a pretty commanding position.
Expect England to be more ruthless on Wednesday.
"We were in a great position and asked the batting group to be ruthless, we got to be better in the next game. We got a strong batting line up and shouldn't be losing that," said Knight.
There were as many as four run-outs in England's innings, reflecting a panic situation when it could have sailed to a series win. Opener Danielle Wyatt, who made a comeback with this rubber, is due for a big score.
The battle between pacer Katherine Brunt and Shafali at the top has become more interesting with the Indian hammering her for five successive boundaries after being bowled by the English woman in the series-opener.
- India: Harmanpreet Kaur (captain) Smriti Mandhana, Deepti Sharma, Jemimah Rodrigues, Shafali Verma, Richa Ghosh, Harleen Deol, Sneh Rana, Taniya Bhatia, Indrani Roy, Shikha Pandey, Pooja Vastrakar, Arundhati Reddy, Poonam Yadav, Ekta Bisht, Radha Yadav, Simaran Dil Bahadur.
- England: Heather Knight (captain), Tammy Beaumont, Katherine Brunt, Freya Davies, Sophia Dunkley, Sophie Ecclestone, Tash Farrant, Sarah Glenn, Amy Jones, Nat Sciver, Anya Shrubsole, Mady Villiers, Fran Wilson, Danni Wyatt.
- Match starts 11 PM IST.