Harmanpreet’s maturity, Gayakwad’s guile, fielding worries: What we learned from India-England T20I

With the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup now less than a month away, India have the opportunity to get in some superb practice games in a tri-series against England and Australia played Down Under.

Australia are, by far, the best team in the world and England are one of the most experienced units around. Going up against them will give India an idea of where they truly stand and they got the series off to a good start with a five-wicket win against England.

It was only the fourth time (out of a total of 18 matches) that India have beaten England in a T20I and if anything, it tells one how this team, slowly but steadily, is starting to get its act together in T20 cricket.

Here’s what we learned from the game:

Spin to win

India gave the new ball to Rajeshwari Gayakwad and her left-arm orthodox spin put England on the back foot right away. On a pitch that players later revealed was a little damp to begin with, Gayakwad gave the England batters no pace to work with.

The England batters usually like the ball to come onto the bat but Gayakwad recognised the right speed to bowl at and stuck to her guns. It meant that England had to take the risks against her in the Powerplay overs and that saw her take two wickets for 8 runs in her first spell of two overs. India skipper Harmanpreet Kaur then took her out of the attack but she had set the template for the Indian spinners to follow.

Even when she came on to bowl later in the innings, her next two overs only went for 11 runs despite England looking to go for the big shots.

Gayakwad finished her spell with bowling figures of 4-0-19-2 — an economy rate of 4.75. All the other Indian bowlers went for an RPO of 7.50 or more and that underlines just how crucial the spell was.

Captain leads from the front

India’s innings got off to a rapid start thanks to Smriti Mandhana and Shafali Verma. The two openers found the boundaries easy to come by in their short but rapid 27-run stand. Jemimah Rodrigues also came in and batted with great freedom but by the time the score reached 81, the three youngsters were back in the dressing room and India were just looking a bit wobbly. This has been a problem area for India in white-ball cricket: a shaky middle order.

But this is where Kaur stepped up, like she usually does in the shortest format. She batted with great calm and maturity. Due to the belligerence of the top three batters, the run-rate wasn’t an issue for India. For Kaur, it almost never is.

Still, someone needed to guide the team to victory. The need of the hour was to try and get closer to the target without doing anything silly and there might have been a temptation to accelerate and finish the match as quickly as she could.

But on Friday, she was in control of the situation. Her 42 off 34 included five fours and a six and it wasn’t as quick as some of her other innings but it got the job done. And when she needed to, she got the big shot out to finish the game.

Come the T20 World Cup, India will need her to do much more of the same.

Fielding worry

India look good with the ball, their batting has been steadily getting better. But their fielding remains a big worry and it was at its worst in the early going.

Between the fourth over of the innings and the seventh, India dropped three catches. Kaur, uncharacteristically, was the first player to err. Natalie Sciver smashed it straight to mid-off but Kaur just wasn’t able to get her hands up in time.

Rodrigues, whose ground fielding is very good, then gave England top-scorer Heather Knight the first of her two chances.

She was patrolling the boundary line at deep mid-wicket, as she usually does, when Knight smashed one straight to her. But the ball just burst through her hands and beyond the boundary. On air, they said she had dropped a very similar catch during the tour game against the Governor General’s XI a few days back.

The third dropped catch was the toughest of the lot but Veda Krishnamurthy got both her hands to it and these are the kind of catches that win matches. As things panned out, Knight went on score 67 off 44 balls. It was an innings that almost took her team to victory.

On the flip side, that the dropped catches came from arguably the three best fielders in the side will give India hope that it was just a one-off. But with the T20 World Cup just a few days away, coach WV Raman would want to come up with drills that need to address this weakness.

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