Captain Harmanpreet Kaur and coach Amol Muzumdar disclosed in their pre-departure press conference that fielding and fitness were the main concerns that India addressed in order to get ready for the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup.

The loss to Sri Lanka in the Asia Cup final not too long ago was one Harmanpreet said she “will remember” and attributed to “a lot of fumbles” in the field, including dropped catches and ground fielding. To tackle these problems, the Indian team convened and engaged in several training sessions at the National Cricket Academy (NCA) in Bengaluru in order to get ready for the World Cup.

“We did a lot of fitness and fielding in the first camp; the entire 15 days were delegated to that aspect of the game,” Muzumdar said. “This was specifically done for those two areas where the skills weren’t touched.

“The next camp was just the skill camp where we focused not just on the net session but we also had almost 5 games in 10 days’ time. So if you ask for game time, we have ticked that box. And we played some very competitive games. There were different oppositions, there were different skill sets that were chosen for those particular games. So as far as game time is concerned, I think we are on it.

“We focused on the athletic ability, just to enhance the athletic ability. And we had designed the camp specifically on that aspect. And all-round fielding ability. Some yoga sessions were added, some, you know, psychological sessions were added. Overall it was just a lovely camp. We identified a few areas and we tried to work upon it.”

As eager as a “19-year-old” for this World Cup, Harmanpreet claimed the team has worked hard to prepare for scenarios such as the Asia Cup final.

“If I talk about the entire tournament, we played good cricket but had just had that one odd game. Definitely that day, things didn’t go according to the way we wanted. But yeah, there are a lot of areas where as a team, we sat and discussed how we have to go about it. We are working on that and at the previous camp, we tried to see how we can improve if next time these kinds of situations come our way.”

India has narrowly missed out on several opportunities to win the ICC titles, most notably in the 2020 final at the MCG. Most recently, they were again thwarted by Australia in the semifinals of the 2023 T20 World Cup.

“It was hard, you know when last time we came close and then we lost,” Harmanpreet said. “But, you know, every time you just need to think about all the positives which you have done to reach the semis. And then, you know, working hard on yourself, working hard on your fitness and fielding, which are the most important two areas in cricket. And I think in this tournament whatever time we got, we tried to tick all the boxes because going there, I didn’t want to go with that mindset [that] I haven’t done this, I haven’t done that.

“Whoever was there, we spoke to them, ‘You know, I want this, I want that’. They gave me all the freedom to speak to them. They were giving whatever things I was asking for and being really grateful. They’ve been so helpful during this time.”

The T20 World Cup will be underway in UAE from the 3rd of October, with BCB as the host. India begin their campaign on the 4th Oct against New Zealand in Dubai.

India’s squad for the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup 2024: Harmanpreet Kaur (C), Smriti Mandhana (VC), Shafali Verma, Deepti Sharma, Jemimah Rodrigues, Richa Ghosh (wk), Yastika Bhatia (wk)*, Pooja Vastrakar, Arundhati Reddy, Renuka Singh Thakur, Dayalan Hemalatha, Asha Sobhana, Radha Yadav, Shreyanka Patil*, Sajana Sajeevan.

*Subject to fitness clearance

Travelling Reserves: Uma Chetry (wk), Tanuja Kanwer, Saima Thakor

Non-Travelling Reserves: Raghvi Bist, Priya Mishra

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