IND vs AUS, 1st T20I: India trusting Muzumdar to work on mental side of game, says Harmanpreet

The India captain, on the eve of the 1st T20I, said the players love communicating with coach Muzumdar who has the ability of bringing everyone together.

Harmanpreet Kaur and Amol Muzumdar during a practice session. | Photo Credit: EMMANUAL YOGINI

As India looks to shrug off its embarrassing 0-3 ODI defeat against Australia and bounce back in the three-match T20I series, captain Harmanpreet Kaur revealed that the players are ‘trusting’ head coach Amol Muzumdar and working on the mental side of things.

“Our head coach is quite sorted and he brings everyone together. Every player loves communicating with him as he listens to them patiently and helps them out. He is someone who’s played a lot of cricket and he has been through a similar phase - that we are in now - in his playing days, so he understands it all,” Harmanpreet said.

In the past, Harmanpreet has advocated for the need to have a mental conditioning expert travelling with the team. Back in 2020, Dr Mugdha Bavare worked briefly with the team as the mental-health conditioning coach and the team benefitted from those sessions and went on to reach the final of the T20 World Cup in Australia.

🔹 Both players with a background in field hockey
🏏 Both have a mean sweep shot in their banks
🤝 Teammates at The Hundred@lav_narayanan writes about two players on either side of #INDvAUS tour and what brings them together and what sets them apart.https://t.co/khMEWlV2O6

— Sportstar (@sportstarweb) January 4, 2024

Since then, the team hasn’t had a mental conditioning professional, even though a few players are still in touch with her in personal capacity. However, Muzumdar is ably filling in the vacancy.

On Thursday, he sat down with the India captain and went through each and every delivery that Harmanpreet faced in the last few games and wanted to find out what was going on in her mind. “And today, I came and batted for an hour. He’s trying to help a player who’s not scoring but is an important part of the team. He’s giving important pointers to each and everyone and all of us are trusting him,” she said.

Going through a rough patch, Harmanpreet is working hard to regain her mojo. “Even luck plays a key role because I got out in a weird manner a couple of times. It was not that I played bad shots or they bowled well, but those were weird ways of getting out. I am trying my level best to train hard and bat so that it does not look like I am out of form,” she said.

With a tight schedule, the Indian team has played back-to-back games and shifted formats over the last one month, but the captain made it clear that there were no fatigue-related issues in the team. “I do not think that’s the case because as cricketers if we are not playing international cricket, we are practising. I do not think it is too much cricket, but if we look back at the (last) one month, there has been only one game in which we were not up to the mark…”