India women head coach Amol Muzumdar underscored the importance of fitness and fielding as his team begins an important stretch of assignments leading into the T20 World Cup. The Harmanpreet Kaur-led team host South Africa for a multi-format series starting with the one-dayers in Bengaluru.
“When I took over last December, we had said that fielding and fitness have been the cornerstone and we have been driving that message to the group. They [the players] have responded really nicely to that,” Muzumdar said. “Fielding is a work in progress and we are working very hard towards it and trust me, you will see some results out of it.”
The South Africa series, which begins on Sunday (June 16) is bookended by the two limited-overs formats with the one-off Test sandwiched in between. That the T20I leg in Chennai is at the end ensures format continuity leading into the Women’s Asia Cup in Sri Lanka starting July 19 and subsequently into the World Cup in Bangladesh which begins on October 3.
“The continuity is very important in the few months leading up to the World Cup,” Muzumdar said, “This series, the format that we are playing is ODI format, then the Test match, then the last one is T20. It is a very well-scheduled series and we go into the Asia Cup which again is T20s.
“By then I think we should be ready for the World Cup. Then we have a layoff of about seven and a half weeks before we head off to Bangladesh. It is a very well-thought-out series and [we are] really looking forward to it.”
Incidentally, India are scheduled to play all their ‘Group A’ matches of the World Cup in Sylhet, a venue they played five T20Is at in their most recent bilateral assignment against Bangladesh. Muzumdar said the team was building up well to the mega event with carefully curated skills-specific camps in between.
“We have had a fantastic preparation in the last eight weeks,” Muzumdar said. “We went to Bangladesh and had a desired result; 5-0 we won the T20 series. We also practiced over there, in the same ground where we would be playing the World Cup. We’ve had a couple of camps before this series. We had a split camp. The bowler’s camp was held at NCA here in Bengaluru and the batter’s camp was held in Navi Mumbai. It was a concentrated camp and we had the fruitful desired results for the camp.”
Smriti Mandhana, who led her Royal Challengers Bengaluru side to the WPL title this year, came in for praise from Muzumdar with the head coach expecting the star batter to also contribute to the leadership group.
“Smriti is a fantastic leader,” he said. “We do have a leadership group within the team and Smriti is a big factor in that. Going forward, she definitely has got a role to play. She has a good camaraderie with the current captain Harmanpreet Kaur and we are all working together. She is definitely a fantastic leader as we’ve seen in the WPL. She has won the title for RCB.”