The Indian women’s team is finally set to play their first Test since 2021, against England, in Navi Mumbai, starting Thursday, making it a highly-anticipated clash between the old foes. Quite a few things have changed in Indian cricket since that, but the home side has had a good preparation time for the longest format of the game.
Ahead of the one-off clash, skipper Harmanpreet Kaur sounded confident and said that the Indian team will be approaching this match like other matches, and mentally the team needs to be prepared for the challenge.
“As a team, our motivation is to play good cricket. I know it will be a bit challenging coming after playing white-ball cricket. But the bowling unit has had 10-15 days to prepare and see how the red ball behaves. We’ve tried our best to prepare both the bowling and batting side well,” Harmanpreet said at a press conference, as quoted by News18.
“We’ve discussed in our team meeting that it’s all about the mind games. How do we ready our minds other than thinking of stuff like we last played tests two years ago, or I didn’t play or there are new players in the side.”
After a 1-2 drubbing in the T20Is, it will be difficult for the team to make a solid comeback but Harmanpreet thinks that they, as a team, need to be more aggressive in thinking.
“It’s just that the ball has changed, our approach will be the same. We could have more attacking fields and attacking bowling but in that situation, how you play, and how you win sessions, we have discussed on that and prepared as well as possible.”
India vs England 2021
Talking about the last Bristol Test, she added, “Last time we played a test, I got an injury so it is a big moment for me to lead the side and we are clear that we want to play some positive cricket. It is challenging to prepare so quickly but as a player how we look at this is on us.”
“If I talk about the last time we played in India we played well and won against South Africa. When we played in England, Shafali’s 100 (96) and Sneh Rana managed to save the game, and recently Smriti’s hundred as well, whenever we played tests we had exciting performances.”
Meanwhile, this will be the first time Harmanpreet will lead India in a Test match, after Mithali Raj’s retirement.
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