The team India displayed a great brand of cricket on their recent England tour as they won both the T20 and Odi series on the tour. The best thing about these series was India had multiple match winners and contributors throughout the series and if anything it gives them enough hope of dreaming of winning the upcoming Odi World Cup in India and Sri Lanka.
The 3rd and last game of the tour was special for Harmanpreet Kaur, the captain of Indian women team, as she scored her seventh Odi century but her first score above 50 in the format in 13 innings.
“In all the matches I wanted to give my best in batting but today’s game was very important to us,” Harmanpreet said. “The plan was to spend some time on the wicket and then see how things go. That really worked for me.
“The first [ten] balls, I didn’t get any runs but then I was just talking to myself: ‘I’m not going to lose myself, just be there, be there for the team’.”
The last Odi wasn’t all about Kaur but it was more about the 21-year-old Kranti Goud as well who took five-wicket haul becoming the second young player after Deepti Sharma to achieve this feat.
“She’s been really impressing whenever she was on the field and bowling for the team,” Harmanpreet said of Goud. “I’m really happy the kind of bowling she did today and whenever we needed a breakthrough, she was there for the team.”
Following their 333 for 5 in Canterbury in 2022, India’s 318 for 5 was the second-highest ODI score by a visiting team in England. Additionally, it was the fifth time this year that India have scored 300 or more in ODIs.
India will now face Australia in a ODI series right before the World Cup and if anything that series would test their strength more and more.
“Today was a totally different situation and different pitch, different atmosphere, in home conditions it will be different,” she said. “But whenever you win, that can always give you a positive mindset and keep you in a good place.
“This series definitely will give us a lot of confidence but, again, when we go back, we have to start again from ball one.”
She was also pleased that her team were hitting good form at the right time.
“Our team has been really working hard for so many years and this is the time where we are getting that [reward],” she said. “We only talk about playing good cricket and we know the kind of talent we have in our side. It’s only about using the right talent at the right time and getting the best out of them.
“I’m really happy. All the girls, they’re coming up with a positive mindset and working really hard on their fitness. We have understood a lot of things in the past few years and right now we’re just trying to pass that benchmark and set ourselves into that position where people can talk about women’s cricket. People can take women’s cricket really seriously back home because we all know how much people love cricket back home, and they also want us to do well.”
