It is the same dreaded story with the Indian women’s team yet again.
A team that had such high hopes and good form heading into the 2024 ICC Women’s T20 World Cup, a team considered to be one of the favorites to win the tournament, and arguably one of India’s strongest squads on paper.
Yet, disappointment ensued for India as they crashed out, finishing third in Group A, with Australia and New Zealand qualifying for the semifinals.
An ignominious exit
India was put in Group A that comprised of Australia, New Zealand, Sri Lanka and Pakistan.
Although a rather difficult group, India was touted to get through the group stages along with Australia. But destiny had other ideas.
A 52-run defeat against New Zealand, a team that had lost ten previous T20I games meant India started their campaign on a dull note.
They followed it up with wins against Pakistan and Sri Lanka, and needed a victory in their final league match against Australia to qualify outright to the semifinals.
After restricting Australia to 151, India stumbled in the run chase initially but a good partnership between Deepti Sharma and captain Harmanpreet Kaur brought India back into the game.
Needing 41 from the last four overs and with six wickets in hand, India had the upper hand but a brilliant fight back from Australia meant that India lost the game by 9 runs.
After that defeat, India needed Pakistan to beat New Zealand in order to qualify to the semifinals.
New Zealand, however, sent Pakistan packing and progress with Australia. In doing so, India suffered an ignominious exit from the competition.
Batters come a cropper
Aside from the first game, the bowling department cannot be faulted since they managed to do well in the subsequent three matches.
However, the India batting unit left a lot to be desired.
A lot was expected from the explosive opening pair of Smriti Mandhana and Shafali Verma and the duo simply never got going in the tournament
Apart from the Sri Lanka game where they made 98, the pair did not survive the powerplays in any of the other three matches, with either one of the two getting out cheaply.
There were many instances where the Indian batting lacked game awareness.
The most evident examples were that of the lack of intent against Pakistan.
When they had to chase a small total, they did not show the desire to finish the match sooner which could have given them a good net run-rate (NRR) after the defeat against New Zealand.
Rather than using Dubai’s large boundaries to their advantage by scoring runs via ones and twos, the Indians relied largely on boundaries and repeating attempted big hits that ended up in the fielder’s hands.
The Sri Lankan match saw a rejuvenated batting performance and a revival appeared to be on the cards, especially against Australia in a much smaller Sharjah ground.
But India was back to square one.
With Kaur being the only settled batter in the crease, instead of retaining as much strike as possible in the final overs, she kept taking singles, handing the strike to lower order batters who aren’t exactly known for their power hitting.
With 14 runs requiring of the final over, Kaur should have backed herself to face all the six balls but instead, she took a single in the first ball, giving the strike to Pooja Vastrakar.
When India needed 13 from 3 balls, Kaur yet again took a single, handing over the strike to Shreyanka Patil, a tail ender.
In fact, Kaur only faced two balls in the last over and her approach was puzzling at best.
Coming into the tournament boasting of a strong batting lineup, India fell well short of expectations and apart from the skipper, none of them really did justice to their batting prowess.
A tournament to forget for Smriti Mandhana
As the vice captain of the team, Smriti was expected to lead the batting with Kaur taking care of finishing duties.
While the latter did her job reasonably well, Smriti has had a tournament to forget.
With just 75 runs scored across four games, at an average of 18.75 and a strike rate of 95, this is quite easily one of Smriti’s worst tournaments with the bat.
Having won the WPL with RCB as a skipper, she hit a purple patch in the home series against South Africa, scoring runs for fun.
She came into this tournament on the back of an excellent year in international cricket, which makes it all the more disappointing that we could not see Smriti at her fluent best in this tournament.
Crumbling under pressure
It has been a recurring issue that the Indian women’s team, when put under pressure, has the habit of crumbling like a pack of cards and the players and management too recognized it.
Despite their best efforts, it happened again.
Against Australia, India had the upper hand, but when the pressure started to mount, right in front of our eyes, the Indian team faltered.
A major reason for its repeated occurrence is the lack of high pressure games in bilateral series, where India tend to dominate for large parts.
One can only hope that the WPL can teach the Indian players to deal with pressure.
Bowling, a silver lining
Despite a disappointing exit, India will go back with a few positives, mostly in the bowling department.
Asha Shobana had an excellent tournament with the ball, picking up crucial wickets for India in the middle overs and stemming the flow of runs.
With five wickets in the three matches and an economy rate of just 5.41, she was India’s best bowler in the middle overs.
Renuka Singh and Arundhati Reddy also had a memorable World Cup, with both pacers picking up seven wickets each in four games.
While Renuka came up with the goods in the powerplay, Arundhati was a floater who bowled everywhere and did a great job when handed the ball.
The only Indian batter who did well in the tournament was skipper Harmanpreet Kaur.
Dismissed just once across four games, she stood tall when wickets fell and led the batting, showcasing why she is indeed one of the finest batters India has produced.
Her unbeated 52 from 27 balls against Sri Lanka was a treat to watch, and one can say with a large degree of confidence that had Kaur faced all six balls in the final over against Australia, India would have stood a chance of progressing.
What next for Team India?
India will now return, regroup, and play New Zealand in a three-match ODI series at the Narendra Modi Stadium, starting from October 24.