Heather Knight: At the end of the second day’s play in the four-day women’s Test against India, England’s Nat Sciver-Brunt said many batters in her team lacked the intent to score, thus getting bowled out for 132 in their first innings.She said they had discussed it and would show better intent to score in their second innings.
England batters did not improve much as they were bundled out for 131 in less than two and half hours on Saturday morning, succumbing to a massive 347-run debacle against India Women in two and half days of the four-day encounter.
Claiming that it was a steep learning curve for her players, England skipper Heather Knight said apart from intent to score, going by this Test, there were many areas on which her team has to improve.
“Well, I don’t think scoring intent was the main reason (for defeat). I think India again bowled very well. I think when the ball is turning like it was, you’ve got to find a way as a batter and a method to try and score runs and try and have a real clear idea of when you’re going to defend, when you’re going to score, and what the threat is. I guess, we have been found to lack in these areas,” said Heather Knight after her team’s massive defeat, the biggest by run margin in the history of women’s cricket.
She said they had discussed how they would like to bat in the second innings, but found the conditions difficult to tackle as they have not experienced such weather conditions and a pitch offering so much turn.
“India were outstanding. The way they batted in the first innings is something we can learn a lot from. The main thing is credit to how they played. The conditions are something we’re not used to, we were trying to find a way to score runs. We were better today in our tempo but it was still tricky,” she said.
England was playing in India after more than a decade and none of these players had experience of playing Test cricket in India.
“So, yeah, we certainly talked about that after our first innings, how we want to go about it in the second innings. We wanted to show a bit more intent and try and pick really good options around how we’re going to score off different bowlers and how we’re going to soak up pressure. Well, none of us have faced those sorts of conditions before. So, yeah, it was certainly a steep learning curve,” said the 32-year-old from Plymouth.
The England batters, who were bamboozled by Deepti Sharma’s spin bowling in the first innings as the off-spinner claimed 5 for 7 runs were done in by pace on Saturday as Pooja Vastrakar claimed 3-23 and Renuka Singh 1-30 in England’s second innings.
Knight said things could have been different if her pacers had managed to get a couple of more early wickets on the opening day. A few catches were dropped and a few edges landed short, she said, adding that if those had gone in her team’s favour, things would have been a bit different.
Asked what were the takeaways for England from this tour of India, Knight said, “A lot of learnings for us and think of the kind of toolbox you need to play here. Charlie Dean in particular bowled very well last evening, Lauren Bell with the control she had, with her consistency was the highlight for us. Execution is key to taking wickets. It’s an ultimate experience to play a Test match here, hope we don’t need to wait for nine years.”