“I want to create a pool of fast bowlers from the WPL. It makes a lot of difference if you strengthen the bowling attack.” Indian women’s team head coach Amol Muzumdar speaks about using the WPL platform for developing bench strength for the Indian women’s team.
Amol Muzumdar, a domestic stalwart who plied his trade for Mumbai for the major part of his domestic career before going on to represent Assam and Andhra towards the end of his career in domestic cricket. After his retirement, he took up coaching for the 2nd innings of his career. He was officially appointed as the head coach of the Indian Women’s cricket team in October 2023.
He guided India to a memorable victory in a red-ball format against England and Australia in a one-off Test match in India. It was his first assignment as the head coach of Women in Blue. however, they suffered heart-breaking losses in the ODI (3-0) and the T20I format (2-1) against England and Australia. India fielded Renuka Singh as the only pure pacer, alongside the pace-bowling all-rounder Pooja Vastrakar courtesy of the conditions on offer. Titas Sadhu and Meghna Singh were the other two pacers in India’s Test squad. Amanjot Kaur replaced Meghna Singh in the white-ball format squad for the England and Australia series.
“Four fast bowlers played the last series, I want to create a pool of fast bowlers from the WPL. It makes a lot of difference if you strengthen the bowling attack.” Amol Muzumdar speaks about strengthening the Indian pace attack. Renuka Singh Thakur stepped in to lead the Indian pace attack after the legendary former Indian pacer Jhulan Goswami announced her retirement from International cricket on 24th September 2022 leaving a void difficult to fill. Renuka Singh failed to get support from the other end, adding pressure on her to provide breakthroughs for India regularly.
However, the emergence of the 19-year-old pacer from West Bengal, Titas Sadhu has provided some sort of relief for the Indian pace department. She has impressed with her bowling spells for India, since making her international debut on 24th September 2023 in a T20I against Bangladesh at the Asian Games in Hangzhou, China.
The Inaugural edition of the Women’s Premier League saw the emergence of the likes of Saika Ishaque, Tanuja Kanwer, Shreyanka Patil, Minnu Mani, Kanika Ahuja, etc. Most of them went on to make their International debuts for India. “I would want another pool of 20-25 players to create a bench strength for the Indian team.” the Indian women’s cricket team head coach Amol Muzumdar speaks about building a bench strength of players who are ready to play at the International level for India.
In the ongoing 2nd edition of the Women’s Premier League, we are already witnessing impressive performances from the likes of Sabbhineni Meghana as she returned with scores of (53 off 44 balls) and (36 off 28 balls) so far in the first couple of matches for RCB. Arundhati Reddy is also having an impressive start to the 2nd edition of the WPL as she returned with impressive match figures (4-0-27-2, and 3-0-16-1) in the first couple of matches.
Kiran Navgire’s match-winning knock (57 off 31 balls) in the 6th match of the season against the defending champions Mumbai Indians and Tanuja Kanwer’s impressive contributions with the bat as well as with the ball for the Gujarat Giants and Sobhana Asha’s exceptional spell (4-0-22-5) with the ball against the UP Warriorz are some of the emerging performers so far in the ongoing edition of the tournament. She also became the first Indian bowler to pick a five-wicket haul in the history of the WPL.
The ICC Women’s T20 World Cup in Bangladesh is just 7-8 months away, all the players have an opportunity to sneak into the senior women’s T20I World Cup squad with impressive performances in the ongoing 2nd edition of the Women’s Premier League.
(Quotes sourced from Espncricinfo)