Richa Ghosh’s timing was off for the best part of India’s early-summer tour, yet one forceful warm-up knock has changed the mood in the dressing-room. The wicketkeeper-batter’s 68 from 36 balls against England on Wednesday, though it came in a narrow five-run defeat, was enough to convince her captain that the lean spell has passed.
“We were waiting for Richa to get that confidence back,” Harmanpreet Kaur said on the eve of Sunday’s Group 1 opener against Pakistan. “She’s a key player, a game-changer for us, and we are all very happy that now she’s back in form and confident again.”
Until that innings Ghosh had struggled. She mustered 85 runs in the five-match series in South Africa in April – respectable on paper, but scattered over several starts – and scraped together 18 across three outings during the recent mini-series in England. Numbers alone rarely tell the whole story, yet the dip was visible enough for coaches to spend extra time with her in the nets. According to Harmanpreet, those extra throws have paid off.
“She’s looking really well after that game, even in the nets. One good innings always gives you a lot of confidence, and we have seen that the moment she got those runs she looks like a completely different player in the nets… . I think that her rough phase is gone.”
India feel they have peaked late rather than early. They have now been in England for close to a month, a stretch that has included series defeats – 4-1 to South Africa, 2-1 to England – but also a steady acclimatisation to cooler evenings, slower seamers and heavier Dukes balls. Harmanpreet spoke openly about the process.
“You can’t just go with a fixed plan; you have to be very flexible with a lot of things, I think that is the key point we have learned so far and hopefully will use in this major tournament,” she said. A moment later she offered a broader reflection. “I personally feel that when things are always going well, sometimes you don’t know which areas you need to improve in as a team, but when you lose, you learn a lot. That’s what the last one-and-half-months has shown, lots of things, lots of scope for improvement.”
Lessons, she added, have been fed straight into training. “That’s what we have been discussing in team meetings and trying to apply ourselves on the field — how we can do better in that area, how to improve ourselves and bring that onto the field. And I think those losses have given a lot of learning and hopefully we’ll use that experience for this tournament.”
For once India arrive with a clean bill of health. Pakistan, though, suffered an anxious half-hour on Saturday when captain Fatima Sana was struck on the knee by a firm drive from Ayesha Zafar in the nets. The all-rounder hobbled off but later insisted she would be ready.
“I think it is good now,” Fatima said. “We all are ready and we know what the conditions are because we are here since almost two weeks because we played the series against Ireland as well in Ireland. We just need to execute better plans and we need to be more calm.”
Pakistan’s recent T20 record is mixed – defeats against West Indies and Ireland in Dublin last week followed a 2-1 series loss in South Africa – yet they commonly raise their level against India. Much may hinge on their top order resisting the new ball long enough for Nida Dar and Aliya Riaz to finish. India, meanwhile, will bank on Smriti Mandhana’s early fluency, with Ghosh and Harmanpreet providing the late charge.
Spin could prove decisive; Sophia Gardens’ drop-in square offered turn throughout England’s domestic Blast on the men’s side, and the same strips are being used here. If the surface grips again, Radha Yadav’s flat-trajectories against Bismah Maroof might be the tactical subplot to watch.
There is pressure – the fixture rarely lacks it – yet Harmanpreet wore a small grin as she summed up the mood. The captain did not bother denying that the opening match matters a little more; instead she called it “a chance to set the tone”. For India, a rediscovered Richa Ghosh could make that first note ring loud enough.
