India Women cricket team go into a must-win game against England Women in the ICC Women's World T20 2016. The Women in Blue have made it known right from the start that reaching the knockout stages of the competition has been their target and they should know the real work starts now.
After getting past Bangladesh Women in a convincing fashion, Mithali Raj and co. can only rue their luck after Pakistan Women just edged past them in their second game to win by two runs through the Duckworth-Lewis method Saturday.
The India Women no doubt couldn't cope with the pressure put in by the Pakistan Women bowlers but they somehow managed to get everything back for themselves during the closing stages of the game, just before rain played spoilsport and washed away an edge-of-the-seat thriller.
Pakistan were on 77/6, needing 20 runs in four overs at that juncture.
However, with the past being the past, the likes of Mithali, Jhulan Goswami and the fiery Harmanpreet Kaur have to bring their focus back ahead of the game against England Women, to keep their hopes of the last four alive. The Charlotte Edwards-led side won their opening game of the competition against Bangladesh Women by 36 runs, and they are by no means an easy challenge for the Women in Blue.
The England Women are currently ranked No. 2 in the world. Charlotte remained one of the impressive performers in their clash against Bangladesh in their opening fixture. The 36-year-old right-handed batsman scored 60 off 51 balls to get the total to 153/7 in 20 overs. The bowlers also played their role impressively to restrict their opponents to 117/6 in 20 overs.
"The next two matches [against England and West Indies] are very crucial for us to remain in the tournament. We will just look to recuperate from this [Pakistan] game and get back to our winnings ways," India Women batsman Veda Krishnamurthy told BCCI.tv. "We just have to look forward from here on and recover quickly from this loss."
Squads: India - Mithali Raj (C), Ekta Bisht, Rajeshwari Gayakwad, Jhulan Goswami, Thirush Kamini, Harmanpreet Kaur, Veda Krishnamurthy, Smriti Mandhana, Niranjana Nagarajan, Shikha Pandey, Anuja Patil, Deepti Sharma, VR Vanitha, Sushma Verma (wk), Poonam Yadav.
England - Charlotte Edwards (C), Tammy Beaumont, Katherine Brunt, Georgia Elwiss, Natasha Farrant, Lydia Greenway, Rebecca Grundy, Jenny Gunn, Danielle Hazzell, Amy Jones, Heather Knight, Natalie Sciver, Anya Shrubsole, Sarah Taylor (wk), Danielle Wyatt.
India vs England schedule:
Date: March 22, 2016.
Time: 3:30 p.m. IST (10 a.m. GMT, 6 a.m. EST).
Venue: HPCA Stadium, Dharamsala.
TV listings: India - Star Sports 2, Star Sports HD 2
UK: Sky Sports 2/HD
US: Willow TV
