It has been close to 36 hours since India lost to South Africa in a virtual group-defining clash. With that defeat, Group A is now wide open, with South Africa, Bangladesh and India all fighting for that second spot in the group. With two games to go for each of the teams, whichever side wins both games will give itself the maximum chance to qualify for the semi-finals.
India face Bangladesh in their next game in Manchester. The first thing India need to do right now is forget the South Africa match and concentrate on the next game. The Indian team now already have the experience of playing in Manchester and are adjusted to the slow pace and bounce. India should either stick with the same playing XI or bring in either Renuka Singh Thakur or Kranti Gaud in place of Arundhati Reddy.
While Arundhati Reddy had been doing extremely well with the bat in the shorter format over the last year or so, since the last over of the second T20I against England in Bristol, where Freya Kemp took her apart for 24 runs, Arundhati has looked like a shadow of the bowler she actually is. Maybe it is time to give her a little break and let her regroup.
The Indian bowlers, apart from Sree Charani, have been straying down the leg side. The writer’s observation is that the Indian bowlers do not want to give any room to the batters and hence are trying to bowl straighter, but are ending up bowling down the leg side. The Indian bowlers, under bowling coach Avishkar Salvi, should have a chat about the line they are bowling and shift it more towards off stump and the fourth-stump channel.
The Indian batting line-up has not really undergone a lot of change. Yastika Bhatia at No. 3 is a change, yes, but the rest of the batting line-up has been there for more than a decade now and each one needs to step up in the next two games. Jemimah Rodrigues takes too much pressure and tries to play some sort of improvised and innovative shot every ball. Jemimah is an important cog in the Indian batting wheel and she has to step up. She has enough shots in her book to be able to manoeuvre any sort of field and get runs, but somehow, in her head, she has to move around the crease, create room and play some improvised shot, which often leads to her throwing her wicket away.
And of course, last but never the least, the fielding and catching have to be better. Radha Yadav came back from a finger injury and, seeing the taping on her finger in the last game, it did not really seem that she is yet at 100 per cent. Having said that, given the pedigree of fielder that Radha Yadav is, she would take those catches 98 times out of 100, and those two times happened in the last game. But the writer firmly believes that if Radha Yadav is still carrying even a bit of an injury, then ideally she should not be out there fielding.
India have to win against Bangladesh first and then the focus should shift to Australia.
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