Image Credit- Bangladesh Cricket
“We always discuss Australian fielding, because
skill wise we believe we are really close. Fielding is something that has been
bothering us, and we need to think about that and do well in the future,”
noted India skipper Harmanpreet Kaur at the post match presentations following
India’s big loss to Australia in the third ODI.
Numerous catches went down in the second One-Day
International, which India lost to Australia by a small margin. In the third
game, which the Australians won by a dominant margin to sweep the ODI series,
poor fielding and catching again damaged India. The big winner on Tuesday,
January 2, was Phoebe Litchfield, who was knocked out by Deepti Sharma at 61.
She went on to hit a memorable 119, tying the record with Alyssa Healy, which
helped Australia secure their victory.
Jemimah Rodrigues acknowledged during the post-match
news conference that India’s fielding performance in the series had been a huge
disappointment, but she also gave assurance that the players will put in a lot
of effort to improve.
“I don’t think there’s any reason we can give, we
need to accept what we’ve done. We’ve not played to our highest potential,
especially in the fielding department there’s a lot of work we need to still
continue (doing). We have been working on it but definitely not the standard
expected for the Indian women’s cricket team. But I can assure you that we will
work on it and come back stronger,” she said.
“I don’t think it’s anything to do with fatigue.
I think it’s just something we need to really work on. I wouldn’t blame
anything because we’ve been getting everything – the practices we want, the
light practices (under floodlights) and everything. I just can’t say it was a
bad day because a bad day can’t keep on coming again and again. But again I’m
telling you, we promise you that we are going to work hard on this aspect.
“We’ve already spoken and each individual
understands how important fielding is. And taking those catches and saving
those runs might just end up winning matches. From all of our side we promise
you that we’ll work extremely hard on our fielding and extremely hard on our
fitness. It might take a while. Results are not in our hands but what’s in our
hands is the hardwork that we put in and I can assure you that it will be a 100
percent every time,” added Rodrigues.