The Indian Women’s team embarked on their tour of Australia after spending a good amount of time in their Bengaluru camp. The team might be playing only three ODIs and the entire focus might be on the one-off day/night Test at WACA in Perth, but coach Ramesh Powar is pretty sure of what he wants.
"World Cup is a very important tournament for us and we're focusing on that. If you see only the one-off Test, we can't go in with a mindset of preparing for that,” he said in the pre-departure press conference.
But his focus on ODIs doesn’t mean that he or the team is taking the Test lightly. According to the former India player, the team will transition itself from the ODI mode to the test mode and he trusts them to do so.
"I think it is about taking the one-day confidence into Test. I'm confident that we don't have to prepare separately for the pink-ball Test. We back our players in the format and they are good enough to react to the situation,” said the coach whose time drew the one-off Test against England Women coming from behind in June this year.
Powar, himself a successful Mumbai off-spinner knows that it won’t be easy for the Indian team to adjust quickly and the experience would be totally different for the team. Hence he has focused on making sure that players react to the situation instead of going with a fixed mindset.
"The Test in Australia will be slightly different because we will be playing with the pink ball under lights. The experience will be different because we have never played with the pink ball under lights before,” he said.
“We don't go in with a set mindset. It's all about how we apply ourselves at that moment,” Powar added further.
Another point of focus of Powar is to find a pacer who would share the responsibility with Jhulana Goswami for opening the innings with the ball. Meghna Singh, the Railways medium pacer, and Renuka Singh Thakur of Himachal Pradesh have been drafted into the side as extra support to Goswami Shikha Pandey and Pooja Vastrakar.
Powar believes that these new pacers would be tried to get to the composition before the ODI World Cup in 2022 in New Zealand in February.
“In the fast-bowling department, we are looking for consistency so that Jhulan can express herself. Because of lack of partnership, she is defensive which we don't want as a team. And we are giving her that support,” the coach said.
The Indian Women begin their tour with the first ODI at North Sydney Oval on September 19.