India’s T20 International skipper Harmanpreet Kaur has credited new coach Ramesh Powar for Women-in-Blue’s fearless approach in the ongoing ICC Women’s T20 World Cup 2018.
Former Indian cricketer Ramesh Powar was appointed Women-in-Blue’s coach after Arothe’s departure in controversial circumstances.
“We have better plans and we can aim bigger now. The self-belief (is different). I can give credit to Ramesh (Powar), because from the time he joined our team, our mindset and approach has totally changed,” Harmanpreet Kaur said on the eve of the semi-final against England.
“The aim will be to carry on with the winning momentum rather than thinking about revenge,” Kaur added.
So far, India and West Indies are the only teams that have remained unbeaten in the ongoing tournament. India will next take on England in the second semi-final on Friday and before that West Indies will face Australia in the first semi.
“We need to live in the present. At present, we’re doing really well, I think. Other than thinking about the past, we just need to think what we need to do in the next game,” Indian captain played down on the revenge part.
“We’re taking it as another game. We just need to focus on what we have done well in the last league games and those things we need to just continue now,” Harmanpreet added.
Meanwhile, English skipper Heather Knight has insisted that Friday’s clash will be different to 2017’s ODI World Cup that England won by nine runs.
“We take confidence from the fact that we performed in knockout matches before, but I don’t think it (the 50-over final) counts for anything with the game tomorrow. It’s a different format, different team for India, different captain for them and things like that,” Knight said.
“It’s all going to be about tomorrow. We know T20 cricket, it’s whoever turns up on the day … It’s about us going out and putting on a really strong performance, showing the good things that we’ve done,” Knight added.
Speaking about spin-heavy bowling attack of India, Knight also mentioned her side has noted and worked on how they intend on scoring runs.
“India have been very effective taking pace off the ball. So we’ll also look to that and how we’re going to go about playing it and how we are going to have our method to score runs.”