Women's T20 World Cup: Indian skipper Harmanpreet urges team to 'improve' their game

As the Women's T20 World Cup begins, Indian skipper Harmanpreet Kaur urged her team to improve their game ahead of their potential semifinal clash against Australia. Smriti Mandhana helped India to a five-run win on the DL Method after the match was first called off due to rain on Monday 20th February. With the win, India booked their spot to the semifinal berth, but many suggest that they now need to improve many aspects of their game.

The Indian team had star batter Smriti Mandhana to thank after she scored 87 off 57 deliveries. She along with Shafali Verma put an opening stand of 62 runs. The opening partnership made sure India reached a total of 155/6 in 20 overs.



With their semifinal spot booked, Indian skipper strongly urged her team to improve their game and focus on some key areas.

"Dot balls are something which [are] already worrying us. In the next game, we would love to see some improvement in that area also,” Harmanpreet Kaur said after the win against Ireland.

"Against England, we played too many dot balls," Harmanpreet added.

"Things like that we have already been discussing in team meetings. But sometimes, when the other team is bowling too well, at the end of the day, these wickets are something when you score 150, that's a par score for you.

"World Cup games are always something where both the teams are always under pressure. I think these matches, if 150 is on the board, you always [have] the upper hand. We are not putting too much pressure on ourselves. We are just going [out] there and understanding what conditions are there and just playing according to the situation,” Harmanpreet added.

In other news, chasing 156, Ireland lost two wickets in the first over itself but recovered well to post 44 after the first six overs. Rain gods though had other plans, and it started pouring down, with Ireland still 5 runs behind the DLS par score. The match, as it turned out, did not resume and India took home the laurels.