Shiv Sunder Das, former India opener, has been appointed as the batting coach for the Indian women’s team for their tour of England. Das feels that he will be able to guide the girls using his coaching experience at the National Cricket Academy.
He has been acting as NCA’s batting coach under Rahul Dravid’s guidance and feels that it will play a huge role in shaping the women’s teams’ batting.
“It will be a good experience and I am looking forward to it,” he said. He will be assisting Head Coach Ramesh Powar on the tour.
The 43-year-old former skipper of the Odisha men’s team said that he was grateful for the opportunity and is looking forward to joining the women’s team as he said: “I have been part of NCA for last four-five years and have been batting coach for the last couple of years. I would like to thank Rahul Dravid and Sourav Ganguly for giving me this opportunity,” said the man who has played all his cricket under the BCCI president’s captaincy.”
“I don’t think there is a lot of difference and at the end of the day, you impart your knowledge, and work with players. You contribute to their success and be ready to solve their cricketing issues when they require you. My responsibility is to make them well prepared and match ready,” he added.
Having played league cricket for years in England, Das feels that his expertise will play an important role during the England series.
He said: “It will help that I have played a lot of cricket in England, including international cricket and league cricket. I know the conditions and those experiences I will share with them. A few of them have toured England multiple times and they have a bit of experience. Whatever time we have, we will see how many training sessions we get and make sure we use them properly.”
Das is also very confident that the women will do great in the test match as the team includes test greats like Mithali Raj and Jhulan Goswami. He says that the experience and talent of the two senior players will be very helpful for the team to adapt to the conditions of England.
“The girls will be excited as they are getting an opportunity to play a Test match after a long time and it’s a good initiative that they are playing the longer format. Jhulan and Mithali have played a lot of international cricket and they will easily adjust to it and it is a good time for young players as it gives opportunity to learn the art of building an innings or bowl a lot of overs, which is good for overall growth as a cricketer,” he concluded.
The Indian women’s team will be playing a Test match after almost 7 years and the one-off Test begins at Bristol on June 16th. It will be followed by a three-match ODI series and the same number of matches for their T20I series.
(Source: PTI, Scroll)
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