Delhi Capitals’ captain Meg Lanning, Marizanne Kapp and Alice Capsey had a fun interactive session recently, talking about their teammates and much more.
Captain Meg Lanning singled out veteran Indian pacer Shikha Pandey as the smartest Capitals player from last season, highlighting Pandey’s ability to execute her plans perfectly. “She was very good at executing her skills under pressure, at the death in particular,” said Lanning.
Young English all-rounder Alice Capsey chipped in, echoing the same sentiments of her captain, but also spoke about Lanning and Shafali Verma’s impact at the top of the innings for the Capitals.
Veteran Proteas bowler, Marizanne Kapp also put Pandey’s name in the ring, stating that she understands how hard it is for bowlers in Indian conditions. “Being a bowler, I’ll also go with Shikha, because of how hard it is to bowl on these wickets,” said Kapp.
Talking about tight run chases and asked whom they would choose in a tight run chase, while both Kapp and Capsey selected Meg Lanning as their go-to batter to get their team home in a tricky situation, Lanning herself went with her opening partner.
“(I) personally would go with Meg, the Queen of run chases,” said Capsey, who was high praise for her captain.
“Meg as well, you know she likes a run chase,” added Kapp, talking about her captain and how Lanning enjoys the pressure situations.
Lanning herself, though, spoke about her opening partner, Verma’s ability to put the pressure on the opponents and how Lanning as her partner has the best seat in the house. “(Yeah) I like Shafali, only because she gets ahead of the game, and takes the pressure off everybody else, you just get to watch the show from the other end,” said Lanning.
Asked about which of the two openers would most likely hit the first ball for six, all three in unison went with Shafali Verma, who is known for her explosive starts.
Discussing which Capitals batter has pushed the ‘boundaries of batting’, Kapp went with Jemimah Rodrigues while Capsey and Lanning both acknowledged Verma’s ability to hit hard early on.
“For me, it’s Jemi (Jemimah Rodrigues), I feel like the way she has transformed her batting in the last two years has been massive,” Kapp stated.
“I’m going to say Shafali,” said Capsey. “From just the way she takes the game on, she’s always entertaining, that’s for sure, and she’s been just so successful for us.”
“Yeah, she puts the other teams on the back foot right from the first ball. You can just see that their minds are going a 100 miles an hour, when she comes out to bat. So, it’s nice to be able to see that,” said Lanning, talking about how Verma instantly puts the opponents under pressure from ball one.
Capsey and Lanning highlighted how Jemimah Rodrigues is the one with the longest training sessions, mentioning that the India batter has 3-4 sessions, while Kapp joked that she’s not been to enough training sessions to answer the question.
Talking about the Capitals player who is always thinking about the game, Kapp went with Pandey while Capsey spoke about Annabel Sutherland’s head being in the game always.
“Actually, I think someone like Shikha, because I know she watches a lot of cricket, and she always talks about cricket so for me it’s Shikha,” said Kapp.
“From an overseas point of view, I’d say Belsey (Annabel Sutherland). She’s always thinking, she’s just got that kind of mindset of always kind of trying to solve the problems in front of her,” added Capsey.
Lanning signed off the session by mentioning how Jemimah Rodrigues would be one to quickly switch to watching their batting highlights rather than the live game.
“I’d reckon Jemi would, I think she’d be pretty quick to get on the ‘gram (Instagram) and just check out a few highlights, which there are many of, by the way, they’d be pretty good to watch.”
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