Played too many dot balls: Harmanpreet Kaur

MUMBAI: India skipper Harmanpreet Kaur feels that playing out too many dot balls in a chase of 173 against Australia in the third T20I at Brabourne Stadium cost her team a victory.

"It's not all about power-hitting. Even if we were to consider and analyse the last match, we were aiming to get 10-11 runs in the over. During the match also we were getting boundaries but we played too many dot balls. That is the reason why we were not able to win this game."

"Otherwise, you have to analyse your strengths and if you play in a calculative way, you can even win matches for your teams. In this match, we got boundaries, but could not make it into big overs. There were overs where we got less than seven runs and that's why we could not chase down that total," she said in the post-match press conference.

Harmanpreet admitted that India are missing the services of fast-bowling all-rounder Pooja Vastrakar, who is out of the series due to an injury. In her absence, India had tried pacer Meghna Singh but had to replace her with senior left-arm spinner Rajeshwari Gayakwad for Wednesday's match.

"We are definitely missing Pooja. On wickets like these, you need a medium pacer. If you are bowling spin back-to-back then, it's very easy for the batters to settle. Her experience, death bowling were missed."

"We tried Meghna Singh in the first two games but unfortunately, it did not click. That's why we wanted to go for experience this time in a left-arm spinner like Rajeshwari."

Harmanpreet also applauded the right-left arm pace duo of Renuka Thakur and Anjali Sarvani for keeping Australia to 26/2 in the first four overs. While Renuka trapped captain Alyssa Healy lbw, Sarvani castled Tahlia McGrath with a perfect inswinger to get her first international wicket. IANS

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