Women's Test: After England, India bowlers target Aussie batters

While the batters did well to post a huge first innings total, much of the credit for India’s huge win in the one-off Test against England last week must go to the bowlers who picked 20 wickets for just 267 runs. Now, they face possibly a bigger challenge in the lone Test against Australia starting at the Wankhede Stadium here on Thursday.

For India’s bowling coach Troy Cooley, the most pleasing aspect has been the eagerness of the bowlers to develop their skills. Addressing a press conference on Tuesday, the 58-year-old Australian said the hosts are determined to build on their success.

“I’m not surprised to see their development because I know the sort of work they’re putting in behind the scenes,” said Cooley. “I have to take my hat off to them for the amount of work they’re doing. The biggest improvement is that they’ve added some skills and variations, but along with that the control and when to use them is coming together nicely. The strategy behind what ball they’re going to use, whether it’s attack or defence. We talk about talking to the ball, and they’re getting some good answers back.”

Harmanpreet Kaur's team lost the three-match T20I series against England before dominating the Test. Across these four games, they relied heavily on Renuka Singh with the new ball. The 27-year-old pacer, making an injury comeback, was India’s highest-wicket taker in the T20I series and provided some crucial breakthroughs in the Test as well.

“Renuka is definitely improving every time I see her,” said Cooley. “She’s come from a couple of injuries and has worked extremely hard to develop her fitness and skills. Not only does she swing the ball back in naturally, she’s also developed the ball that straightens and leaves the right-handers. It’s great to see her using angles and I really like the way she’s putting together her sequence of deliveries. Her toolbox is quite big now and she’s using it in a very strategic and tactical way.”

Pooja Vastrakar was another pacer who played a key role in the win against England, by the largest margin in terms of runs (347) in women’s Test cricket history. In the second innings, especially, the 24-year-old got the ball to nip both ways, taking three crucial top-order wickets.

“Pooja had a sore knee and she came back nicely,” said Cooley. “Through her rehab, she dedicated herself to improving the run-up, get the most out of it. She’s done a marvellous job and is more balanced at the crease now. You can see that natural tendency to get into to the stumps and challenge the batters. She’s got enough pace and variations to be a good red-ball bowler.”

Cooley, who played first-class cricket as a pacer and was bowling coach of the England and Australia men’s teams before joining the National Cricket Academy (NCA), praised Amol Muzumdar for inspiring the players to give their best.

“The new head coach is hell-bent on making sure that the players improve each time they practice or play a game,” he said. “There are a couple of World Cups coming up and he wants to see improvement all the way, and we’ve got a good environment for that under his leadership.”

Australia vice-captain Tahlia McGrath said the visitors will need to adapt quickly as they face a confident Indian bowling attack.

“The biggest key about batting in India is that you have to be really clear on your plans and stick to your strengths,” said the 28-year-old all-rounder. “We’ve had a lot of good conversations as a group about how the conditions will be and how we can attack them. While the Indians have a phenomenal bowling attack, so do we. So, we’ve been facing each other the last couple of days and it’s been a real challenge.”

McGrath added: “This is foreign territory for us, playing in these sorts of conditions. We play so much white-ball cricket and on batting-friendly pitches, so the last couple of days have just been about getting as much information as possible and working out how we’re going to play. It’s been tough trying to get intel. I’ve never played here before and all the stats and data we have isn’t about women’s games. We’ve been lucky to train out here every day and to play a trial game. It’s almost a completely new style of cricket that we’re having to play, but it’s been fun and we can’t wait to get out there.”