“We all know that India are eyeing the World Cup but at the same time I don’t want to miss out on this South Africa tour,” Arothe told Cricbuzz on Sunday (April 30).”We taking it one series at a time. At the moment, we are preparing ourselves for this South Africa tour and want to get the momentum going. We’ll hopefully take it ahead, for the World Cup. “I know it is seen as a preparatory tour for World Cup but we are not looking too far ahead. We’ll work hard for this series win and let’s see how it goes from there,” he added.
The 50-year old Arothe believes that there are plenty of areas for the team to improve ahead of the World Cup as they look to compete against elite teams like New Zealand and Australia.
“To be able to face world-class teams like New Zealand and Australia, our fitness level has to match. So, my first aim is to improve the fitness level of the side as well as the fielding which matters a lot at the international level. We are working on the same, its a work in progress. “I would like to mention here that we are very good in the fielding department, but we are lacking in terms of strength. That’s something we have addressed and is also slowly improving,” he said.
Arothe also believes that they need to work more on the death overs both with bat and ball. as it is one of the most vulnerable areas in Indian women team’s playing style at the moment.
“We are working on it. It important how we bat and bowl in the last few overs. I have been observing that we are not getting too many runs (in mandatory powerplay), and also losing few wickets. If we can right those wrongs in this South Africa series (it will be an improvement). “The reason why the stronger teams are putting up such challenging totals is because they have enough depth in their batting. They are scoring maximum runs in the mandatory powerplay and then again in death overs. When I worked with the Indian team previously, we were posting 60-odd runs and we need to get back to scoring that freely. And then, while bowling, we don’t have to leak too many runs in death overs,” he concluded.