"We want to focus on our strengths": India women's head coach ahead of first ODI against New Zealand
Oct 23, 2024
Ahmedabad (Gujarat) [India], October 23 : Ahead of the first ODI match of the three-game series against New Zealand, India women's head coach Amol Muzumdar on Wednesday said that they are trying to focus on the strengths of the team.
All the matches of the three-game ODI series will be played at Ahmedabad's Narendra Modi Stadium, with the first match taking place on October 24. It will be followed by two fixtures on October 27 and October 29. All the matches will take place at 1:30 pm IST.
Speaking at the pre-match press conference, Amol Muzumdar said that they are working on the areas where they can improve. He added that the upcoming series against New Zealand will be well-fought.
"We are a formidable team and we want to focus on our strengths and work on the areas to improve. I'm sure this is going to be a very well-fought series," Muzumdar said.
The head coach added that it was disappointing for the Women in Blue to fail to qualify for the Women's T20 World Cup in UAE.
"It'll be an understatement to say that we were disappointed from the World Cup, as the team and the players have been hurting. But we need to gather ourselves and look at the positives that we have done in the last 10 months as a group," he added.
The Indian women's team failed to qualify for the knockout stages of the ICC Women's T20 World Cup in UAE. India finished at number three in Group A, with two wins and two losses. The 58-run loss to New Zealand in the opening encounter and a narrow loss to Australia prevented the Women in Blue from reaching knockouts despite wins over Sri Lanka and arch-rivals Pakistan.
India women's T20 World Cup squad: Harmanpreet Kaur (C), Smriti Mandhana, Shafali Verma, Deepti Sharma, Jemimah Rodrigues, Richa Ghosh, Yastika Bhatia, Pooja Vastrakar, Arundhati Reddy, Renuka Singh Thakur, Dayalan Hemalatha, Asha Sobhana, Radha Yadav, Shreyanka Patil, Sajana Sajeevan.
Travelling reserves: Uma Chetry (wk), Tanuja Kanwer, Saima Thakor.
Non-Travelling reserves: Raghvi Bist, Priya Mishra.
