Sports News | India Waiting on Harmanpreet's Fitness Update: Smriti Mandhana
Get latest articles and stories on Sports at LatestLY. Harmanpreet Kaur's participation in India Women's T20I series decider here on Thursday is under doubt after the regular captain was sidelined from the second match having suffered a niggle in her knee during the first game.
Navi Mumbai, Dec 18 (PTI) Harmanpreet Kaur's participation in India Women's T20I series decider here on Thursday is under doubt after the regular captain was sidelined from the second match having suffered a niggle in her knee during the first game.
Smriti Mandhana, who stood in for Kaur as the West Indies levelled the series 1-1 on Tuesday, said the team is awaiting update on Kaur's availability for the third match.
“Harman's fitness, (the) BCCI medical team is observing on day-to-day basis. They'll be at a better place to answer that question. I think we'll have to wait for the update from their side,” Mandhana told media after India's crushing nine-wicket loss here on Tuesday.
Kaur, who turned up for practice here last Saturday with her knee strapped, scored 13 not out in India's big total of 195/4 but she did not take the field in the series-opener here.
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"Harmanpreet Kaur sustained a niggle in her knee while batting during the first T20I against West Indies. Hence, she remains unavailable for selection for the second T20I. The BCCI Medical Team is monitoring her progress,” the team issued a statement ahead of the second T20I here.
Mandhana, meanwhile, brushed aside any concerns regarding her after she copped a blow to her hand towards the end of the second match.
"I think (the) finger is fine now. Just that initial impact, where you think that ‘oh, it can be wrong', but it's all good now,” Mandhana said.
Mandhana, who struck a 41-ball 62 to lead India's charge, said her side did not bowl enough dot balls to put pressure on the free-flowing West Indies batters.
"We did try everything to stop them. But Hayley (Matthews) is definitely a quality player. The executions were not at the mark,” she said after her counterpart Matthews hit a 47-ball 85.
“As a as a bowling unit, our execution can be better. The only way we can get them out is to put pressure by dot balls. We couldn't do that, even in the start or maybe even after six overs. We couldn't create a lot of dot balls and the pressure was never there."
“As a bowling unit we did give a lot of width,” Mandhana added.
Windies skipper Matthews hailed West Indies' nine-wicket win as a “massive feat”.
“I think that's our first win against India, as far as I remember probably since (the) 2016 World Cup here, so that's a massive feat for us. However, we feel like it's just the beginning. These are the kind of performances we want to be consistent with,” she said.
Matthews, who cracked 17 fours in her knock in a brutal display of power-hitting, emphasised on hitting boundaries for a long innings.
“T20 cricket is a game where it's probably very boundary oriented. Anytime you are scoring 80 plus, you're probably going to have a lot of boundaries. It's quite motivating coming down here after the first game especially, and being able to level the series one all,” she added.
(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)