Former India captain Anjum Chopra pointed out that in the sides semi-final loss to Australia by five runs in the 2023 ICC Womens T20 World Cup, there was no support from the fielders towards the bowlers in executing their strategies.
In the five-run loss at Newlands Cricket Ground, India endured a terrible day with misses galore in ground fielding and catching. Meg Lanning was dropped on one by wicketkeeper-batter Richa Ghosh and further survived a stumping attempt on nine too.
Shafali Verma dropped a simple catch of Beth Mooney at long-on when she was on 32. Apart from the three dropped chances, there were misfields in large numbers which got Australia to post 172/4.
Anjum was also disappointed by the bowling strategy of giving width almost all the time. "We fell short in every department. I think it was good that Australia was batting first -- it gave India the chance to chase runs.
But I didn't understand their bowling strategy because there was a slow wicket for which they kept protection on the boundary square of the wicket, they asked their spinners to bowl short and outside.
But how will they take wickets if every bowler bowls in that manner?" Taking this as a bowling strategy, there was no support in terms of fielding - it has to be top-notch.
They missed a lot of straight catches, and if we talk about Shafali Verma, she needs a lot of brushing up because young players are expected to field well in these crunch moments and to do it with exuberance."
Our bowling did not give up many runs at first, though it is expected that you will conceive runs in the final overs, keeping the reason aside, at the end of the day you have to chase runs to win the game," said Anjum to former India men's player Aakash Chopra on JioCinema's daily show #AAKASHVANI'.
India were in trouble at 28/3. That's when Jemimah smashed 43 off just 24 deliveries, and along with skipper Harmanpreet Kaur making 52, they were involved in a brilliant partnership of 69 from 41 balls, making India firm favorites to chase down 173.
But after crossing the ten-over mark, Jemimah fell while trying to ramp a short ball over Alyssa Healy's head and gave a thin edge behind to the keeper off Darcie Brown. In the 15th over, Harmanpreet was unfortunately run-out when her bat got stuck while trying to reach the crease.
Those twin blows meant India never recovered from it and ended up at 167/8, marking another occasion of so close, yet so far' for Harmanpreet & Co. Anjum further spoke about how the Indian team can improve going forward, especially on the mental side of things.
"I think you need to go backwards before going forward. Simply go back to the 2022 50-over world cup and see what happened from there. We knew the 2023 T20 World Cup will be in South Africa.
So, what preparations have we made from there? Who were the players for whom we had expectations? It was expected that this was the player who would go with us in T20Is.
What preparations did you do with them, and how much preparation did that player do to play in this World Cup? And then, coming to this World Cup, what happened to them?
Where did it go? Is it just skill-related? Or is it mindset-related?" the former player said. "Or should we say that the heart should be a little strong when you enter the big competition because if you are not strong, if you do not have that courage inside you, then no matter how much preparation you do in the end, you will fall short.
So before going further, I think it is very important to do an assessment of where we were, where we are, and how we can go forward," she added.