India women’s team to start their World Cup campaign against hosts England
Internet Desk: Mithali Raj’s Indian Women’s cricket team will have a tough task in their hand when they face hosts and one of the title contenders England in the opening match of the ICC Women’s World Cup 2017 on Saturday.
The Indian team is going through a good phase as the beat the Proteas convincingly by eight wickets in the final of the Quadrangular series last month.
The Women in Blue could have directly qualified for the World Cup if they played three matches against Pakistan in the ICC Women’s Championship. The ICC deducted six points from the Indian Women’s team due to their non-participation.
After finishing fifth on the points table with 19 points, India had to play the qualifiers in Sri Lanka. India won the tournament without losing a match and won a thrilling final against South Africa by one wicket.
India will play the tournament under the captaincy of veteran Mithali Raj.
India skipper Mithali Raj’s primary aim is to reach the semi-finals of the tournament. She is going through a great run as she scored a record-breaking six successive half centuries, and she would like to continue to do so in the tournament.
The captain feels that the women’s cricketers should not be compared to their male compatriots and she is also very sad that they couldn’t get the same recognition while representing the country.
The veteran batsman came up with a snappy response when asked who her favourite men’s cricketer was between India and Pakistan.
“Do you ask the same question to a male cricketer? Do you ask them who their favourite female cricketer is?” she said to the scribe in question.
“I have always been asked who’s your favourite cricketer but you should ask them who their favourite female cricketer is.”
Raj was attending the opening dinner and media roundtable event on the eve of the Women’s World Cup.
Raj pointed out that the Indian women do not receive the same amount of publicity as the men.
“There’s a lot of difference because we are not a regular on television. Now the BCCI has made an effort that the last two home series have been televised and social media has improved a lot of it but there is a still a lot of catch-up to do in terms of recognition,” she said.
Raj said the team has benefitted under the guidance of coach Tushar Arothe.
“Men’s cricket sets the bar. We are always trying to reach where they set the standard. All of us follow men’s cricket because we want at some point that women’s cricket would be up there,” she said.
“All of us at some point have been coached by a male cricketer. I strongly believe that they get a lot of intensity into the training sessions. They are very hard taskmasters.
“I believe that if you are representing your country, your country should get the best of the best. It’s nothing to do with women coaches (who) don’t have the ability.
Teams (from):
India: Mithali Raj (capt), Harmanpreet Kaur, Smriti Mandhana, Veda Krishnamurthy, Mona Meshram, Poonam Raut, Deepti Sharma, Jhulan Goswami, Shikha Pandey, Ekta Bisht, Sushma Verma, Mansi Joshi, Rajeshwari Gayakwad, Poonam Yadav, Nuzhat Parween.
England: Heather Knight (capt), Georgia Elwiss, Jenny Gunn, Alex Hartley, Sarah Taylor, Tammy Beaumont, Katherine Brunt, Danielle Hazell, Beth Langston, Laura Marsh, Anya Shrubsole, Natalie Sciver, Fran Wilson, Danielle Wyatt, Lauren Winfield.