The star keeper-batter Richa Ghosh feels India would need to score at least 180 to compete with Australia’s strong batting line-up in the Women’s T20 World Cup semi-final while Australia had only lost one T20I in the last 22 months and that loss came against India.
The star keeper-batter Richa Ghosh feels India would need to score at least 180 to compete with Australia’s strong batting line-up in the Women’s T20 World Cup semi-final.
Although India lost the five-match series 1-4 in December, the score line did not do justice to how hard the ‘Women in Blue’ pushed the world’s top-ranked team across the five games. Now Harmanpreet Kaur and Co. are attempting to do the same.
“Australia is comfortable chasing because they bat deep, we do too, but toss is not in anyone’s hand. So whatever the situation, we will have to go through with it. We have plans,”
Ghosh, India’s best finisher by a distance, said on the eve of the semi-finals against Southern Stars.
“We don’t know how the pitch will behave tomorrow but it looks nice. We can target 180 on this if all our batters click and while bowling we will try to restrict them to 140-150 because they have a good batting lineup,”
Ghosh said.
India has found a much-needed finisher in Ghosh and the youngster hasn’t let them down. Talking about her game, she said:
“There are ups and downs always, even I had them but have learned a lot from there, and how you can handle a situation. When I go to bat, my handling of pressure has improved.”
Australia has recently been India’s nightmare opponent but Ghosh believes Meg Lanning’s team is a beatable one. Australia has been a dominant force in the format since winning the last edition in 2020 at home.
Australia had only lost one T20I in the last 22 months and that loss came against India away from home via a Super Over. The five-time champions have won all of their group-stage games and are unbeaten in the tournament so far.
“Australia is beatable, in the last series we beat them and we have also done it before. They are a strong team but we can beat them,”
Ghosh stated.
“We are trying to improve our mindset. Everyone has the game but the mentally strong team will win. We have been working on that,”
said Ghosh.
The U-19 World Cup-winning teenager said that India intends to exploit Australia’s weaknesses, after playing in a five-match series in December.
“We know the weak spot of Australia and we are planning against it but I will not say what that (weakness) is because then they will come prepared.”
The hard-hitting Ghosh, who has two half-centuries in the tournament and is the team’s leading run-scorer, said India will play an attacking game similar to Australia on Thursday.
“They attack a lot. So, whatever happens to them, even if the batter is out, they don’t leave the attacking. Because they have batters from top to bottom. We also have batter from top to bottom. So, we will play an attacking game.”
Ghosh feels beating Australia will be a “huge confidence booster” heading into the final.
“I only see the ball and try to play according to it, I don’t see who is bowling because if we start thinking that a top bowler is bowling then the nervousness creeps in,”
she concluded.