In spite of a loss today for Indian women at the hands of New Zealand, the real shining star of today and the future for me is Richa Ghosh. She is fearless, she is improving game by game but most importantly she is always playing to win. The 18-year-old went on to make the fastest 50 in ODI by any Indian having faced just 26 balls.
India got on to the field without Harmanpreet Kaur who has been a regular in playing XI for some time now.
Queenstown witnessed yet another whistle which was loud and clear from New Zealand women announcing to be a strong contender for the upcoming ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup.
Having been restricted to 20 overs a side due to rains – NZ women looked unaffected by the change in the number of overs and stuck to the target of creating enormous pressure from ball one of the match.
Indian bowlers looked shaky and fielding only worsened their woes. A couple of dropped catches and some ordinary fielding effort in the outfield by Indian women today only helped the NZ batters to thrive.
It however cannot take away the glorious start given by the White Ferns’ captain Sophie Devine (32 runs off 24 balls) and Suzie Bates (41 runs off 26 balls) but the backbone in this built of runs was undoubtedly Amelia Kerr who smashed 68 runs in just 33 balls and remained not out till the end of their innings total of 191 runs. Amy Satterthwaite’s 32 at a strike rate of 200 helped NZ pile up 191 on board at the loss of five wickets.
Shafali Verma definitely has a lot of thinking to do. She might have been the new kid on the block in the past but she never looked her own self anymore. Giving her wicket away for a score of 0 to a juicy short-pitch delivery by Frances Mackay which needed to be smashed for a boundary or a six.
Yastika Bhatia was next to go for a golden duck and it looked like a good move to have Pooja Vastrakar bat at number four, however, the latter departed scoring just the four runs.
Smriti Mandana looked in ravishing form during her innings of 13 (a good sign for team India). Mithali Raj continued with her passion and hunger for runs with a quickfire 30. India bundled out for 128 with some good bowling by Amelia Kerr (3-30), Frances Mackay (2- 22), Hayley Jensen (3- 32), and Jess Kerr (2- 11)
Take home for India – Bounce back ASAP- all is not lost!
New Zealand – Match Winner -hands down!!
Minoti Desai is a former India Test and ODI cricketer. She is also the author of the book “She The Cricketer”. This is an exclusive Column by Minoti Desai for FemaleCricket.com where she would express her thoughts around Team India’s campaign for the Women’s Cricket World Cup 2022
Minoti Desai is a former India Test and ODI cricketer. She is also the author of the book “She The Cricketer”
Good write up dear minoti