Sydney: England captain Heather Knight feels tackling spinners, particularly the in-form Poonam Yadav, will be crucial to her side’s chances of upstaging an unbeaten India in the semifinal clash of the women’s T20 World Cup here on Thursday.
Yadav bamboozled hosts Australia in the opening match of this tournament and her wicket-taking exploits haven’t stopped there. She is leading the charts with nine scalps in four matches. But the leg-spinner couldn’t cast her spell the last time India met England in the tournament, conceding 29 from her four overs as Knight’s side romped to an eight-wicket victory to reach the final two years ago.
“We’ve practised for her a lot, I thought we played her outstandingly in the last T20 World Cup and that was due to the preparation we had,” Knight said on the eve of the match. “We don’t have (assistant coach) Ali Maiden anymore, who bowled brilliant leg-spin, but we’ve got a few coaches who have bowled it brilliantly and we’ve been really clear on how we’re going to do things against her,” she added.
Yadav has gone on to become India’s leading T20I wicket-taker and her ability to deceive on Australian pitches has forced Knight to take note ahead of their crunch match. ‘She’s a massive threat for them and is an improved bowler since the last World Cup, so for us to be successful, we’re going to have to play her and all their spinners well. That’s going to be key in the game,’ the England skipper said.
The Indian bowlers have been in phenomenal form, apart from Yadav, Shikha Pandey stands fifth with seven wickets. And the two have been complemented well by the likes of Radha Yadav, Rajeshwari Gayakwad, Deepti Sharma.
After losing to their opening game to South Africa, England have been under the pump to keep their semifinal hopes alive, which the skipper feels will go in their favour. “It feels like we’ve built some momentum, we were gutted after the South Africa game and we’ve been playing knockout cricket since game two, that stands us in very good stead going into the knockout stages. We’ve started to get some players in real form and the players that aren’t, you feel like they’re just round the corner and can produce in a massive game such as the semi-final.”
With rain forecast for parts of the day, a degree of flexibility will likely be required against India, a change in approach that Knight is willing to take on. “We’ll have a chat about what our strategy is. We’ll be quite clear about how we want to do things but we’ll have to be flexible. A lot of us have played in rain-reduced games before and it’s all about who switches on the fastest, who adapts very quickly and who ultimately performs in that short space.”
“The good thing about our team is that we’ve got a lot of variety, a lot of different skillsets bowling and batting, so we feel like we can adapt to any situation we’re thrown in to.”
Shafali Verma tops T20 rankings
Teenage Indian batting sensation Shafali Verma on Wednesday rose to the top spot in the ICC women’s T20 International rankings, riding on her stellar run at the ongoing World Cup here.
The 16-year-old Verma takes over from New Zealand’s Suzie Bates, who had been the top batter since October 2018 after wresting the spot from West Indies captain Stafanie Taylor.
Verma’s explosive batting at the top of the order saw her score 161 runs in four innings, including knocks of 47 and 46 against Sri Lanka and New Zealand. It helped her become only the second India batter after Mithali Raj to top the women’s T20I batting rankings, according to an ICC statement.
Verma and England spinner Sophie Ecclestone will go into the semifinals of the event as the top ranked batter and bowler respectively. However, Smriti Mandhana has slipped a couple of rungs to sixth in the latest list. Among the Indian bowlers, Poonam Yadav is up four places to eighth after a good run in World Cup.
India’s Deepti Sharma has advanced nine places to seventh, the first time that she is among the top 10 in the all-rounders’ list after also moving up to 53rd among batters.