Women’s World Cup: Brittle top order, strike rate – India has plenty to ponder

It may be still early to say whether the pressure of expectations is weighing heavy on Indian women’s squad, but an insipid performance against South Africa – the first major hurdle they faced in this ICC Women’s World Cup on Thursday – is bound to raise questions. They will have to pick up the pieces rather quickly before facing off champions Australia on Sunday (12 October), and the job will not be easy.

 The Women in Blue are currently in third place in a eight-team table, with the top four finishers after the group league going through to semi-finals. The format doesn’t offer any team a short cut route to the business-end and this means Harmanpreet Kaur & Co will have to win at least three of their remaining four matches – a tough call given that the Aussies, England (19 October) and World T20 champions New Zealand (23 October) are the next three rivals. The hosts wrap up their league campaign against a sprightly Bangladesh on 26 November.

  Reflecting on the game, skipper Harmanpreet – who had been failing to convert her starts with scores of 21, 19 and nine so far – said: ‘’We didn’t take responsibility as a top order. We have to change things and post better totals. It’s a long tournament. It was a tough game, but there are plenty of lessons to learn. We need to keep a positive frame of mind.’’

The warning signals, incidentally, had been there in their first two wins against Sri Lanka and a weak Pakistan too but they rode it out before taking on the resurgent Proteas. India’s experienced top order, comprising of the prolific Smriti Mandhana, Harleen Deol, Harmanpreet and Jemimah Rodriguez, had looked brittle; the strike rate had been a major concern with too many dot balls being played while the batters had been struggling against left arm spin.

 In the tournament opener against Sri Lanka in Guwahati, India collapsed from a promising 81/1 to to 124/6 while in Colombo against Pakistan, a 67/1 deteriorated to 159/5. The meltdown in Visakhapatnam against South Africa was also bizarre where India were reduced from from 83/1 to 102/6. It took an exceptional display of power-hitting from wicketkeeper Richa Ghosh, who clobbered 94 off just 77 balls at number eight, to take the score past the 250-mark.

 However, despite reducing South Africa to 81 for five at one stage, the entire Indian team had no answer when Nadine de Klerk – their number eight – took the attack to the home team bowlers. It’s not every day that a woman batter strikes at 155.56 and shoulders started dropping among Indian bowlers and fielders as Nadine and Chloe Tyron stitched together a 69-run partnership for seventh wicket to take South Africa closer to the target.

Speaking to the broadcasters, topscorer Richa - whom former coach WV Raman had singled out as an X-factor of this team in an interview - refused to single out the seniors for the batting failure. ‘’The top order are all very good players. One match doesn’t define them. Anything can happen in cricket; our job is to do our best every time. We never gave up – we fought until the last ball and tried to score as many runs as possible. But yes, Kranti’s over, with that six and four, really shifted momentum. Until then, we were in control and playing well,’’ she said in response to questions about the persistent top order struggles.

 However, the numbers tell their own story and India has to show a dramatic turnaround if they have to go deep in the tournament. Just ponder this: opener Pratika Rawal has managed 105 runs across three matches, Smriti 54, Harmanpreet 49 and Jemimah just 32. Surely, they need to do better than this, and now!