New Delhi: Before the T20 World Cup, India focused on starting strongly. With that box ticked after a confident 64-run win against Pakistan in the tournament opener, they appear assured as they face Netherlands at Leeds on Wednesday.
“It’s always important to start well. It gives you confidence,” wicketkeeper Richa Ghosh told reporters ahead of the fixture. “We are taking it one game at a time. We will take confidence from the first game into the second game.”
It will be the first T20I meeting between the sides. Richa admitted that there is some novelty around Netherlands because of that and said the team would be cautious and not take the Dutch team lightly.
The Dutch women had a tough first outing, losing to Bangladesh by six wickets. But captain Babette de Leede is confident that despite the challenging teams they are lined up to face in Group 1, there’s a lot more the team can do.
The 26-year-old remains the most dependable batter for Netherlands. With her side in trouble at 76/5 against Bangladesh, she launched a measured counterattack to take them to 139, although it proved too little.
“I believe if it all comes together we can beat any three of them (India, Australia and South Africa) on a given day. It’s only T20, so you only need 2 or 3 players to excel on the day,” she said after the loss to Bangladesh. “We can definitely cause some upset, especially because we’re the underdogs. They don’t know us, so it could all work in our favour.”
While spinners Deepti Sharma and Shree Charani starred with the ball in the easy win over Pakistan, Smriti Mandhana and skipper Harmanpreet Kaur helped them put up a challenging total. Richa showing her batting form in the warm-up against England and her 17-ball 34 against Pakistan also provides India a lot of solidity in the batting order.
Talking about her improved finishing skills, Ghosh said, “The WPL helped me a lot because there were different players from different teams. We played with domestic as well as international players. That mix helped me a lot.”
Australia’s Ellyse Perry and New Zealand’s Sophie Devine, besides Mandhana as captain, were her teammates. “I followed what they were doing and how they approached the match. That helped me understand what I can do for the team. I got a lot of experience from there.”
After not finding much support against Bangladesh, De Leede will hope for some more inspired performances with the bat against India. Iris Zwilling continues to be the standout bowler after becoming the first Dutch player to reach 100 T20I wickets. Caroline de Lange took two wickets in the opener, but the attack will need more precision against heavyweights India.
India will be eyeing two points along with a considerable net run-rate cushion against the Dutch, keeping in mind how tricky the equation in Group A – the Group of Death – could get with South Africa, Bangladesh and Australia lined up after Wednesday’s fixture.