Late on Sunday night in Sharjah after the defeat against Australia, India head coach Amol Muzumdar was asked if he has any message for the team that he’s backing to win the final Group A match. He chuckled, took a few seconds to nod his head, and said: “That’s a good question. Yeah, that’s a good question. Well, I just want to wish Pakistan all the best. That’s all I can say. But we will be watching the game very closely, that’s for sure.”
And so on Monday, India’s last chance went out of the window. Pakistan must have given them hope when they restricted New Zealand 110/6 in 20 overs. It could have been a much lower score, mind you. Pakistan dropped more catches than you could count on one hand and it made their own lives harder, not just India’s. Fatima Sana’s side had to chase whatever target New Zealand set within 11 overs and they gave themselves a much stiffer target than what their bowling performance deserved.
And in attempting to give themselves the chance to create history by reaching the semifinal for the first time, they created a record of the unwanted kind. All out for 56, their lowest score in this format. Pakistan didn’t do themselves any favour, they certainly didn’t do any for India. But in all fairness, neither did India.
Harmanpreet Kaur and Co’s campaign, perhaps fittingly, came to an end under the lights in Dubai with New Zealand emerging victorious.
Long camp
As has been pointed out earlier, India strangely just opted for training camps in the lead up to the tournament when most top teams played some sort of competitive cricket in the two months prior. When the schedule for the World Cup came out, you could immediately see India’s first match against New Zealand was going to be massive. They had to be dialled in from the first ball, otherwise it had the potential to be a virtual knockout. But we have since been told by the Indian think-tank that they weren’t quite ready for the conditions in the UAE, and paid the price for conceding 160 against New Zealand at a venue where run-scoring hasn’t been easy. The batting collapse that night only made matters worse.
India’s captain Harmanpreet Kaur bats during the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup 2024 match between India and Australia at Sharjah Stadium, United Arab Emirates, Sunday, Oct. 13, 2024. (AP/PTI)
“In terms of preparation, we had everything going in that camp in Bangalore. We had two camps, one was dedicated towards fitness and fielding, and the other one was just the skill camp,” Muzumdar said after the defeat against Australia. “We did have about eight weeks to prepare. I couldn’t have asked for more from my support staff and the players, and preparation for this World Cup was thorough. We came into this World Cup really upbeat. Yeah, it is a little disappointing to lose the two games in the league stages.”
Fielding, while still not perfect, has become something of a scapegoat for India’s defeats, hiding other flaws. For all the dropped catches, India were leading the way in the tournament in terms of catching efficiency. It should not be overlooked that, along the way, there have been a few selection head-scratchers as well.
Musical chairs at No.3
The No.3 slot witnessed a case of musical chairs in 2024. India have used six different players in that position. No one other than Pakistan played more batters in that position since December 2024. Just before the World Cup, Muzumdar said Harmanpreet was going to bat at that position, and even that wasn’t maintained consistently. Apart from that, in wanting to have a sixth bowling option, India weakened their batting lineup while also playing three pacers in a couple of matches despite conditions favouring slower bowlers. England, for instance, have consistently played a four-pronged spin attack.
The inconsistencies of their batting lineup didn’t help either. Much was expected from Smriti Mandhana, considering her purple patch earlier in the year. Apart from the match against Sri Lanka, she looked a shadow of that. In fact, except Harmanpreet, no other batter had a campaign to remember.
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Semifinalists in 2018. Finalists in 2020. Semifinalists in 2023, but a heartbreaking defeat in the semifinal against Meg Lanning’s Australia, that really could have gone either way. Over the last three editions of the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup, India were well and truly in the mix in the business end of the tournament. The trophy eluded them, sure, but they came within a step or two over the last five years.
Granted, their group was difficult to get out of. But courtesy of a poor start, they ended up missing out on the semifinal for the first time since the home edition of 2016. In 2024 – when they were expected to take a step forward with long overdue improvements around women’s cricket in the country – India took a step back.
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