The BCCI recently shared a video where team India batter Punam Raut spoke about her batting approach and how she trained herself to bring out such great knocks in the ODI series against South Africa.
In the video, she said that she has been working on her back-foot shots and rotating the strikes since Lockdown. What she focused upon the most was her batting and aimed at improving the skills as much as possible with the help of her coach.
“I played a lot of practice matches with the boys and worked on some technical flaws. I’m grateful for the lockdown as I got to work upon myself all this long. I was able to put up runs on board because of all the practice,” she said in the video.
Talking about the 4th ODI against South Africa, she feels that the team has got great spinners and the team is very confident on the bowling unit. She feels that the target that team India had posted was not a small one but instead, a challenging one. The team posted a total of 267 runs for the visitors to chase.
“I feel that our total wasn’t very low, but we will work on it better and improve the opening partnership as we need few good partnerships that can take to the team to a good total. We need to be more disciplined with our bowling too. We also need to learn a little about fielding from the way South African players showcased their fielding skills. We will learn a lot from this series and do better in the future,” said the Right-hand batter.
She feels that every batter has a different form and has a different style of attack and the strike rate doesn’t really make much of a difference. Some hit long shots, and some stay on the pitch working on the partnership. “I try to stay on the field for as long as possible and showcase my strength alongside hitting shots wherever possible. I never think much about the strike rate,” she added.
Punam Raut’s excellent form continues – Smashes yet another Half-Century for India.
That’s her 16th ODI Half-Century.
India: 134/2 (33) #INDvSA #PunamRaut #INDWvSAW @raut_punam pic.twitter.com/UvzLH9Dk3U
— Female Cricket (@imfemalecricket) March 14, 2021
Talking about the comeback, she says that it is very important to remain strong mentally so that the focus can be on batting for the team and not on the strike rates. Her performance has improved as she always worked on what was best for the team and keeping in mind what the team required the most.
Talking about her batting position in the team, she says that it is the coach and the captain’s call to decide her batting slot.
“If my captain feels that I should go one down, then I’ll follow that and if she feels I should open the game, then I’ll follow that. It is not in any players’ hands,” said Raut.
About her century in the 4th ODI, she said “Every century is special for every batter, and this one was very special for me too because it had been very long that I had hit a century and I wanted to continue my good form. I’m very happy that I was able to bring up a century and I’ll always keep working like this for the team,” the centurion said in the video.
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I’m a Senior Masters student pursuing Journalism and Mass Communication. An all time Cricket enthusiast. I could never play the game but always loved watching it, and now writing about it!