Confidence To Win Matches Will Come Only With A Settled Unit: Mithali Raj

Feb 3, 2017 at 5:45 PM

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Confidence To Win Matches Will Come Only With A Settled Unit: Mithali Raj

The upcoming cricket calendar features action packed time for cricket fans. While the men are gearing up for the Champions Trophy which begins in a couple of months time, the ladies are sweating it out for the ICC World Cup qualifiers scheduled to be held in Colombo from February 7-21 as well as the ICC Women’s Championship. Ahead of the all-important 10-nation tournament, Mithali Raj, the Indian skipper, stated the preparations to take up the opportunity are in full swing.

“As for us, it is a time to prepare for bigger matches since it comes in the run-up to the ICC Women’s World Cup. Though the conditions in Sri Lanka will be much different to England and Wales, which will host the mega event, we will still be taking the opportunity to put things in place,” Mithali said.

Talking about the competition, Raj said their collective focus is to set challenging totals on the tracks of Sri Lanka where spin will play a pivotal role in judging the better team. She also pointed out the need for variety in team preparations given the fact the World Cup will be held in England, where the conditions will be completely different as that in Sri Lanka.

“We have been preparing well for the tournament. Our focus is now to make a smooth transition to the 50-over format because we are just coming out of a domestic Twenty20 tournament. We have had a 10-day camp and since it is imperative that we play some practice games, we have also played some matches amongst ourselves as well as against some boys’ teams.

“We are preparing for the slower wickets in Sri Lanka, which are likely to assist spinners. We will probably have to look for totals of about 200 in Colombo, and if we can consistently do that, we should be happy. If we get scores in that range, we can hope to score 225 to 240 in England during the ICC Women’s World Cup 2017, where the seamers are likely to be more in action.”

The skipper isn’t taking any team for granted. While they have had the opportunity of playing against the top teams on a regular basis, the women haven’t met the lower ranked teams in recent times – a fact that Raj is slightly cautious about ahead of the crucial matches.

“We have played all the Asian countries and the surprise probably can come from Zimbabwe, so we have to be cautious and ensure we are not upset. We have also not played Ireland in recent times and will not be experimenting against these teams.”

The 34-year-old cricketer has been the face of women’s cricket in the past decade. She concluded by saying the women’s cricket has developed a lot in the past few years in terms of fan following and international exposure. However, at the same time, she pointed out there is still a lot to be achieved.

“Women’s cricket has grown in standard over the years and there has been a huge improvement to what it was in 2013. There has been enormous change not only in the standard of the game but also in the way players are perceived. Women cricketers are being contracted professionally and more matches are being televised.

“One reason for the standards going up is the opportunities that the ICC Women’s Championship has provided to players. In its last edition, eight top teams got to play three ODIs against each other. While earlier teams like England, Australia and New Zealand were the only ones playing regularly, now we have others like South Africa, Pakistan and Sri Lanka also getting exposure. Women’s cricket still has a long way to go if it has to stand on its own, but I feel that is bound to happen in the years to come.”

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