One of many current conversations round ladies’s Check matches has been a have to have five-day video games, as a substitute of four-day ones, and it’s a topic on which England captain Heather Knight has a robust opinion.
She has pressured on the necessity for five-day video games to drive extra outcomes, given ladies play lots fewer Check matches than the boys. Since November 2017 until this 12 months, solely seven ladies’s Check matches have been performed, and just one led to an outright end result – the final one between Australia and England earlier this 12 months, which was a five-day affair.
With four-day Assessments stipulating 100 overs to be bowled per day, Knight stated there needs to be some proactive planning to push for a end result. “We would should speed up the sport artificially a bit of bit. In 4 days, you need to drive the end result a bit of bit extra,” she stated.
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India captain Harmanpreet Kaur too stated that her group’s perspective could be to drive a win.
“It’s a four-day sport, so it’s worthwhile to have the mindset that you’ll look to win,” Harmanpreet stated.
“Reasonably than simply pondering that you need to final in a four-day sport, in these two Assessments, our strategy shall be to play to win. We’re a litle brief on expertise on this format however nonetheless, we will handle. Our batting is sorted, we have now performed some good cricket. Within the bowling too, Deepti (Sharma) and Sneh (Rana) are there, their spells will hopefully get us wickets.”
England have misplaced three and drawn 5 Assessments since their final win in January 2014, which got here in Perth towards Australia, and Knight stated her group is eager to alter the report. India, alternatively, drew each the away Assessments they performed in 2021 (in Australia and in England) and received the final time they performed a Check at dwelling – in Mysore towards South Africa, a match during which Harmanpreet and Smriti Mandhana featured.
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“It seems like a very long time since we’ve received a Check,” stated Knight. “We’ve had a whole lot of attracts and every part we’re working in direction of is about how we need to play the sport and if we glance after that, hopefully we’ll come out with a pleasant end result.”
Brief turnaround
Whereas the gamers picked in India’s squad for the Assessments (towards England and later towards Australia) however not the T20Is had some apply time in Mumbai, there was additionally an intra-squad four-day match that almost all gamers took half in when head coach Amol Muzumdar oversaw a camp final month. Harmanpreet stated that the change in format, given there was solely a three-day break between the T20Is and the Check, could be difficult for the gamers. However the important thing could be to maintain issues easy within the thoughts and never complicate issues.
“I do know after white-ball cricket, it will likely be a bit of difficult. The bowling unit bought 10-15 days to arrange. They understood how the crimson ball behaves. As batting and bowling items, we have now tried to cowl up as a lot as we might,” she stated. “We need to play constructive cricket and that’s one thing that we have now mentioned within the group assembly as nicely. It’s all about (the) thoughts sport. We can’t preserve pondering that we performed a Check match two years in the past and a few women are new within the facet. The (color of) the ball has modified however the strategy would be the identical.”
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The Indian captain additionally spoke about going for aggressive subject placements.
“The sphere placements and bowling may be attacking and we have now mentioned successful periods too. Hopefully, no matter we have now ready within the final two days, we will execute it within the center,” she stated.
Whereas Harmanpreet referred to “butterflies within the abdomen” as an enormous second in her profession approaches, Knight stated that the unknown issue of enjoying a Check in India did lead to some anxiousness in her dressing room as nicely.
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“We had a day to journey up right here after the T20 sequence and we’ve solely had two days to prep, so it’s a very fast turnaround and we don’t play Check cricket fairly often,” stated Knight. “Naturally, it’s one thing we’ve talked about and there’s sure to be extra anxiousness and extra fear and extra stress across the group, purely as a result of it’s one thing we’ve not performed typically.”