Hemlata Kala Said The Indian Team Tends To Falter In The Finals:
Outgoing National Women’s Team Leader Hemlata Kala says the inability to cope with pressure in the big finals has held the side away from a major ICC trophy even though she maintains that Harmanpreet Kaur is still the right individual to lead India.
Kala, who headed 78 ODIs and 7 Tests, was named as a selector in 2015 before becoming Chairman of the Panel in 2016. “Players must be able to play the major games, but they weren’t there despite having a decent balance of youth and experience.
Combat failure also cost us a lot. Perhaps they were under pressure, “Kala told a leading media house in an exclusive interview about the 2020 T20 World Cup campaign. Kala ‘s term as head of the selection committee was a golden phase in women’s cricket.
India reached the 2017 World Cup final, a historic moment for women’s cricket in the world, and undeniably the “greatest high” in its tenure. The loss to Bangladesh in the 2018 Asian Cup final was a low point.
What went wrong with the 2017 ODI World Cup Final and 2018 World T20 Semifinals?
“In 2017, there was also a huge batting collapse. We were 191 for three, chasing 229, but we weren’t able to. There was no need to panic, but we did. “We defeated Australia in the semi-finals with Harmanpreet playing blinder, and next year we even defeated the T20 World League,” Kala said.
Although pressure remains a factor, Kala believes that the current lot she feels will beat England and Australia consistently through two formats.
“And the question of handling pressure remains to date, even though the team is completely capable of going all the way and has shown that by beating the top teams (Australia and England) on a regular basis. We seem to crash in the final, the pressure has played a part in that,” said the 44-year-old.
Another loss in the major final earlier this year raised questions against Harmanpreet’s leadership of former Indian captain Shantha Rangaswamy, who said she was more valuable as a player than a skipper. Kala, however, believes that there is no better leader on the T20 team than Harmanpreet.
“I don’t think there’s any better leader in the current squad than Harman. Success is different, it can go up and down, but it’s just as important to have a leader in the community. “She thinks like one and will stay in the T20s and take over from Mithali once she retires from the ODIs. That was the thought of our panel.”
Kala, however, disagrees with Harmanpreet ‘s view that India is 5-6 years behind mighty Australia. “I’m not going to agree with that, but when it comes to managing pressure in major games, Australia is used to coping with pressure, we ‘re not. We beat them in 2017 (semis), 2018 (league stage) and now we beat them in the league stage in the last edition.
“As I said, we need to figure out how to deal with the pressure in the finals. I ‘m hoping the team will break the jinx in the 2021 ODI World Cup,” she said. Nevertheless, the biggest disagreement over Kala ‘s word came during the 2018 World T20 in the West Indies, where Mithali dropped out of the semi-finals.
“I can’t say much about what happened there. We don’t have a role to play in selecting the 11, our job is to pick the best 15,” she said. Talking about Shafali, who made her debut in India as a 15-year-old last year, Kala said the teenager was destined for greatness. “She will be the queen of women’s cricket worldwide as long as she continues to work hard on her game. She needs to focus on her health, and she knows that.
“When I saw her for the first time in the Under-23 game in Rajkot last year, I was sure she was going to win the World Cup for India. She almost did it for us in Australia,” Kala said, referring to the only successful battle in an otherwise frustrating campaign.
The team is often criticized for over-reliance on spinners, particularly in the shortest format with Shikha Pandey doing the bulk of the work in the pace department. Jhulan Goswami has support for ODIs, but the team needs more world-class pacers.
“Pacers are there, but they don’t have the caliber of Jhulan and Shikha. You need time to train them. India Tours have begun now, and that’s also going to help. If they began in 2017, we would have had more medium pacers by now.
“Each year there’s a Word Cup (T20 or ODI) and then we end up with the most experienced than the freshest unless she’s an excellent player like Shafali.” Looking forward, Kala backed the team to end next year’s World Drought Championship in New Zealand and said that a four-team IPL would be ideal for the moment.
“BCCI has done a decent job with the Women’s T20 Challenge, but I don’t think we’re ready for more than four teams. It’ll take another two-three years before we can have a six-team IPL.
“It’s not just about playing, cricket standards should be high and enjoyable to draw fans. So many people started watching the women’s game after Harman scored 171 in the 2017 World Cup semifinal,” Kala concluded.
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