India vs New Zealand: While batters impress, question looms over bowling strategy
India finished the ODI series in New Zealand with a consolation win in a ‘dead rubber’ match, just like they did in England and Australia last year. However, unlike last year’s tours, both of which were lost 1-2, India conceded the series in New Zealand in 1-4. That kind of scoreline leaves little doubt about the one-sidedness of the contest.
But then, it was expected to be a mismatch, given how the two sides prepared. While the New Zealand cricketers played domestic cricket through the antipodean summer of December and January, the Indians did not. When the two teams met, New Zealand experimented with combinations, while India, out of practice for two months, tried their best to get accustomed with three cricketers quarantined.
And India did get accustomed, for they competed better as the tour went on. After losing the lone T20I and first ODI easily, India were in the hunt until the first 98 overs of both the second and third ODIs. After a top-order collapse cost them the T20-sized fourth ODI, India chased 252 to win the fifth.
The last win is now the second-highest total chased by India Women in an ODI, after the 266 they chased in Mackay only five ODIs ago. That day, they had scored at 5.37 an over, less than their 5.47 in Queenstown, now their best run rate in a chase of over 200.
The Indians scored at 5.36 over the course of this five-match series. This was a significant improvement on their previous best of 5.11, which came in their previous series, in Australia last September. This is, indeed, the best batting era of India in ODIs. Four of their best five averages have come since the last World Cup.
Smriti Mandhana returned from quarantine in New Zealand to pick up from where she had left in Australia. With eight fifties in four matches, Mithali Raj was the leading run-scorer in both series. Yastika Bhatia impressed without getting that one major score: her time will come.India’s batting success cannot be attributed to one specific batter. An injury had kept Harmanpreet Kaur out of the Australia ODIs. She initially struggled in New Zealand before finding that elusive fifty in the last match of the tour. Shafali Verma is yet to replicate her T20 performances in 50-over cricket, but has shown glimpses of her talent.
Perhaps buoyed by her Women’s Big Bash League stint, Deepti Sharma struck at 81 in New Zealand. Drafted in as replacement for Mandhana for three matches in New Zealand, the uncapped S. Meghana struck at 109, exemplifying the change in the Indian batting approach over this period.
However, no one demonstrated this change more than Richa Ghosh, who combined an average of 44.4 with a strike rate of 105, making her an automatic choice in the XI. Taniya Bhatia is probably a superior wicketkeeper, but Ghosh is capable of making it to the XI as a batter alone. For India, that is something only the two Jains – Anju and Karu – could boast of.
However, the same cannot be said of the bowling. Despite the towering presence of Jhulan Goswami, spin has always been the strength for India Women. In Australia last year, the hosts bowled 32 overs of pace for every 50. India did not match that, but at least they bowled 24 overs for every 50.The Indian fielding looked patchy, with catches and run out opportunities being missed. However, that can be attributed to lack of match practice, and will almost certainly be addressed – and rectified – by the time the World Cup commences.
In New Zealand, however, they departed from that strategy. New Zealand bowled almost the same number of overs of pace (30) as Australia’s 32, but India’s count dropped from 24 to 16.
India’s reliance on spin in this series might have been a forced move. Whether India stick to that during the World Cup needs to be seen. However, if they do decide to revert to pace, they will have to go into the tournament with pacers who could have done with more match practice.Of course, the decision to over-bowl the spinners might or might not have been a strategy. Having had to serve quarantine, Meghna Singh and Renuka Singh were restricted to two matches each, while India chose to rest Goswami, now 39, for two of the five matches. That left them with Pooja Vastrakar and, for three overs, Simran Dil Bahadur.
(Abhishek Mukherjee is the Chief Editor at CricketNews and co-author of Sachin and Azhar at Cape Town.)
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