The Indian women’s cricket team is in the middle of an unusually busy December. With three T20Is and a Test against England, and another red ball fixture against Australia and all happening in quick succession, Harmanpreet Kaur and Co. have drifted away from the usual large gaps in fixtures one usually sees in the women’s calendar. Starting Thursday, the red ball gives way to the white ball as India takes on arch-rival Australia in a three-match ODI series at the Wankhede Stadium here, with balance being the primary goal pencilled onto their vision board.
Who to back - seniors or young blood?
India has four uncapped players in ODIs in the squad- off spinners Shreyanka Patil, Mannat Kashyap, Saika Ishaque and pacer Titas Sadhu. Muzumdar chose not to reveal much in terms of how these bowlers will be used in India’s white-ball blueprint leading up to the World Cup but with both World Cups hosted by sides in the subcontinent (T20 World Cup in Bangladesh in 2024, ODI World Cup in India in 2025), one wonders if the time is right for fearless experimentation.
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“We had a long chat with the selectors about looking ahead to the World Cup and building towards it,” India head coach Amol Muzumdar said on the eve of the first ODI. “That’s why we have a mix of experienced players and ones who are either making their debut or who are two-three games old. We’re going into this series with the bigger picture in mind,” he added.
Getting into ODI mode
Smriti Mandhana, Harmanpreet Kaur and Jemimah Rodrigues were not in attendance for the team’s matchday eve optional practice. Shafali Verma and Yastika Bhatia spent the most time with the bat, with a mix of pace and spin being bowled at them. Leg spin was a particular point of practice for the side potentially in preparation to face Alana King. Shreyanka Patil batted in the nets for a considerable time, with Titas Sadhu bowling to her. Bowling coach Troy Cooley closely monitored Sadhu’s pace and was in her ear constantly. Muzumdar worked dedicatedly on fielding as well, with Richa Ghosh getting time behind the stumps, perhaps indicating who India’s keeper of choice for this format might be for now.
Placing the series in context
With the T20 extravaganza coming up sooner, India predictably has not played too much ODI cricket in the recent past. In 15 months, the Women in Blue have played only two ODI series – a three-match series against England, which India clean swept 3-0 in 2022 and another three-match series against Bangladesh, which ended in a 1-1 tie earlier this year. This was the series that saw India skipper Harmanpreet’s infamous outburst aimed at the umpires.
Australia, on the other hand, has played four three-match series this year alone against Pakistan (Aus won 3-0), England (Eng won 2-1), Ireland (Aus won 2-0) and West Indies (Aus won 2-0). The side has never lost a bilateral series against India and has a 40:10 win record against its rival.
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With India’s decision against making Australia’s tour a multiformat series, each format has little reward and consequence attached to give it a sense of continuity, but the larger goal of acing preparation for the World events is certainly the elephant in the room.
Aussie batting mainstay Beth Mooney is steering clear from letting a better head-to-head record cloud her side’s judgement of India’s potential to devastate.
“India are a huge threat in white-ball cricket, they’ve had a lot of success over the last couple of years and have some world-class players in their lineup. That’s a great challenge for this Australia team to come out firing and hopefully nullify that as early as possible. We obviously know that they’re going to play on the crowd a little bit as well, and we get right up and about when there’s a decent crowd too. So, looking forward to the contest and hopefully, we can keep them quiet as early as possible. I think that will be a really big factor in the series as a whole,” she said.
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