Lot was expected from a dominant Indian women’s team who were playing their semi-finals against England in world T20. India top their pool courtesy of victories over New Zealand, Pakistan, Ireland and former champions Australia. India looked in sublime form and were favourites to thump a much fancied opponents in England but it was not to be today.
Harmanpreet Kaur evicted the veteran Mithali Raj from the team in a crunch match where her experience could have made the difference and as a result the Indian batting fumbled under tremendous pressure and could just manage 112/10 in the quota of 20 overs. The women in blue were 89/3 at one stage but the lack of experienced play by the middle order became the reason of their downfall.
England chased down the target with ease and won the match by 8 wickets with close to 3 overs left.
Harmanpreet and newly elected coach Ramesh Powar faced the heat by the fans as they lashed out at them for not including Mithali for a heavyweight encounter.
Sourav Ganguly compares himself to Mithali Raj
Meanwhile, former India captain Sourav Ganguly said that he is not surprised of the team dropping a veteran player like Mithali Raj in the semi-finals as he was too dropped from the team when he was at his peak.
“No! I also have also sat in the dug out after captaining India. When I saw Mithali Raj being dropped, I said ‘Welcome to the group,” Ganguly said.
“Captains are asked to sit, so just do it. I have done it in Faisalabad. I didn’t play an ODI game for 15 months when I was probably the best performer in one-day cricket. It happens in life. The best in the world are at times shown the door,” the 46-year-old said recalling the 2006 second Test against Pakistan.
Ganguly went onto say that its not the end of road for Mithali and the veteran batswoman as the opportunity will arise again in the future.
