Team needs to work a lot on bowling: Mithali Raj

Mackay: India skipper Mithali Raj said that the team needed to “work a lot” on its bowling after suffering a nine-wicket drubbing at the hands of Australia in the first women’s ODI here on Tuesday. “Well, see, you don’t have plans, but again it is about executing it in the ground, sometimes the bowlers don’t […]

Mackay: India skipper Mithali Raj said that the team needed to “work a lot” on its bowling after suffering a nine-wicket drubbing at the hands of Australia in the first women’s ODI here on Tuesday.

“Well, see, you don’t have plans, but again it is about executing it in the ground, sometimes the bowlers don’t get the rhythm, but there are times when you know they get the rhythm but the plan isn’t working,” Mithali said at the post-match press conference.

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“Yes we have a lot to work in terms of our bowling department because, predominantly, we are spin attack and spinners are getting hit everywhere, so that is something we need to tweak in,” she added.

India could only manage 225 for eight in an innings that never got the momentum it needed and then the hosts gunned down the target in 41 overs as India’s bowling lacked the teeth to trouble them.

Mithali, who completed 20,000-career runs, lamented that her side could not build partnerships. “See, when you know the (kind of) batting line up the Australians have, anything closer to 250, is what we were looking at, but losing two wickets, especially batters like Shafali (Verma) and Smriti (Mandhana) in the power-play itself…
“So, it was important that the middle-order starts to compensate for that and build a partnership, that is what we did with Yastika (Bhatia), but again we didn’t get enough partnerships in the lower-middle as well,” she quipped.

On her personal form, Mithali, who scored her fifth consecutive half-century, said, “I have always felt, no matter how many runs I score, there is always some scope for improvement and I want to keep my game. I want to evolve as a player too, I know that I have been scoring runs but it isn’t enough for the team to win, so there is always room for improvement.”

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