Indian women team’s captain Harmanpreet Kaur has given credit to her bowlers after they defeated England Women by eight runs in the second T20I at County Ground, Hove on Sunday. Kaur also added that the fielding was outstanding as they affected four run-outs.
India posted a fighting score of 148 runs after England Women skipper Heather Knight won the toss and decided to bowl first. Shafali Verma gave a blistering start to the team as she scored 48 runs. Harmanpreet Kaur contributed with 31 runs whereas Deepti Sharma scored 24 runs.
On the other hand, England Women were cruising in the run-chase as they 106-2 at one stage with a well-settled Heather Knight and Tammy Beaumont. However, Heather Knight was dismissed in an unlucky way whereas Beaumont was LBW after scoring her ninth fifty.
“I will give credit to our bowlers, their field placement was important, and the fielding was outstanding. We always want to win; this bubble thing is not that easy to adapt. We should give credit to our support staff, keeping us motivated,” Haramanpreet said at the post-match presentation ceremony.
Kaur lauded the collective team effort as every player was able to chip in with their contributions. The bowling unit did a fine job as Poonam Yadav and Deepti Sharma kept a lid on the proceedings.
Yadav scalped two wickets and conceded only 17 runs in her four overs whereas Sharma also took a wicket and gave away 18 runs in her quota of overs. Thus, Deepti was awarded the Player of the match award.
“Great effort by our whole team, everybody knows what to do and I’m really happy with the way we played. We got a very good start, but for two-three overs we didn’t get runs. I had to go because we needed 150 on the board,” she said.
Meanwhile, Deepti Sharma added that the plan was to create pressure with the dot balls and they were able to do that.
“When me and Harmanpreet were batting, we were talking about taking it deep. As a bowling unit, the plan was to bowl dot balls, and bowl in partnerships, cut down boundaries,” she said.
