Though India suffered a batting collapse, the skipper was confident of her bowlers overcoming Pakistan at Sunday's World Cup clash in Derby
India's Sushma Verma bats against Pakistan during the ICC Women’s World Cup at the Derby County Ground on Sunday. Pic/PTI
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India skipper Mithali Raj said she knew it would not be easy for Pakistan to chase down 170 as the pitch deteriorated in the second innings during their ICC Women's World Cup match here.
Batting first, India suffered a batting collapse before reaching 169 for nine and Mithali praised Sushma Verma and Jhulan Goswami for their lower-order contributions.
'We were on the back foot'
"When you lose first wicket in first 10 overs, it naturally puts us on the back foot. Though there were decent partnerships but there were two back-to-back wickets so we were on the back foot," Mithali told reporters after the match.
"The advice or suggestion that we gave to the batters was to play till the 40th over but unfortunately again we lost wickets and in the end we had Sushma and Jhulan, those runs were crucial because it got us to 170 and we were looking for that score when we lost the top four batters.
"When we reached 170, I knew it was just a matter of taking those early breakthroughs because no matter how good a chasing team, there is always pressure of a good start even if you are chasing 150. The wicket did deteriorate later on because the spinners did got a lot of turn," she added.
Mithali said they would reflect on their batting collapse and come back stronger in the upcoming matches.
"It is important that we got this opportunity to reflect on our batting order because the next matches are equally important for the team," she said.
Mir happy with bowling
Her counterpart Sana Mir was happy with Pakistan's bowling effort but rued their poor batting performance, which according to her cost them the match.
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