Navi Mumbai, Dec 16 (PTI) India Women’s Titas Sadhu says being accustomed to conditions and bowling in right areas helped her grab three wickets to set up their 49-run win against the West Indies in the first T20I here.
India outgunned the West Indies to take a 1-0 lead in the three-match series after fifties from Jemimah Rodrigues (73) and Smriti Mandhana took them to 195/4, their highest total against the Windies and third best overall.
Having traversed nearly 7,300 kilometres from Perth to Mumbai, India Women’s side had very little time to rest and prepare but they showed no sluggishness in the first game.
“The fact that we landed here quite at the night time of India and we slept through the whole night properly, and so that kind of helped with the jet lag,” Sadhu told media here on Sunday after taking 3/37 in the opening T20I.
“I think DY Patil (Stadium’s) is a very true wicket and whoever is able to bowl in the right areas, there is always something in the wicket that helps. The dew was there and it was a little difficult for us, but we managed quite well.” “One of the best things was that we have had played in this ground before, and we are actually on the same time of the year, so we are a little bit more accustomed,” she said.
Titas continued, “We have knowledge about it, and that being the key, and so we knew there will still be some help from the wicket if we can actually bowl at the right areas and fortunately we did that.” While India got back into the saddle quickly to record their ninth consecutive win, their skipper Harmanpreet Kaur did not take much part in their fielding innings after she had come out to bat for a while.
When asked about Kaur’s absence, Titas did not specify the issue, saying, “The medical team is looking after that, so probably she will be fine in some time.” West Indies head coach Shane Deitz said there cannot be an excuse for this loss.
“I don’t know why we weren’t ready from ball one. It’s very disappointing. We have to debrief that quickly, train well tomorrow and come out and put a lot better performance in the next game,” he said.
“In India, we’ve been here about nine days to try to acclimatise, which we did. We had some great facilities. We had really good training sessions, that’s why tonight’s performance was a bit of a shock, a bit disappointing, because we actually put the work in to be ready for tonight,” he added.
The former South Australia first-class player said his coaching philosophy has been to bring back the Caribbean flair and Calypso style of play into this side.
“We want to have a style of play which we’ve been trying to develop, that was (also) for the T20 World Cup. Obviously that was the focus over the last year, to get to that World Cup and play well. We did that and we worked on a style of play, how we want to attack cricket,” he said.
“A little Caribbean flair and Calypso style of play… we are trying to bring that back into the team, because that probably wasn’t there previously. The data says that (and) that’s what we’re trying to do,” Deitz added. PTI DDV DDV AH AH
About the Author
