There were concerns over India’s performance at the top of the order heading into the 12-team tournament, but Smriti Mandhana and Shafali Verma allayed those concerns to a great extent.
Mandana has scored 159 runs in three games while Shafali has contributed 92 runs. Both batsmen have scored over 154 runs and have been off to a bright start.
However, the inability of mid-level orders to be built on these platforms has become a new concern for team management.
Skipper Harmanpreet Kaur (SR 109.09), Jemimah Rodrigues (94.11) and Yastika Bhatia (105.88) were all unable to continue the momentum provided by the opener and they were always unable to accelerate, leaving a lot of trouble for the likes of Richa Ghosh and Deepti Sharma.
Kaur and Rodriguez, who played three games each, hit 11 boundaries but failed to score six. Yashtika, meanwhile, has hit just three fours in two innings, a number that may worry the Indian camp going further into the match.
For their part, Richa (176.92) and Deepti (159.37) responded well to the challenge but faced limited deliveries towards the end of the innings, adding to the pressure on the duo.
Despite an uneven batting, India (4 points from 3 games, net rating 2.511) posted big wins – 64 against Pakistan and 95 against Netherlands – as they look to retain second place in Group A.
