JOIN USAfter their comfortable victory in the one-off Test at Mysuru last week, Indian eves will be eager to carry forward that momentum into the one-day series against South Africa, beginning at the M Chinnaswamy stadium on Monday.
In the Test, India were dominant as medium pacer Harmanpreet Kaur and offie Rajeshwari Gaekwad destroyed the Proteas. But the visitors showed that they could be a different force in the 50-over format, while putting on board an even 300 in a warmup game here on Saturday.
The 22-year-old opener Lizelle Lee hammered a 128 as the visitors won that match by a whopping 120 runs. However, their win came against a makeshift Indian eleven. It could be a different scenario once the first-choice players return to the team. Indian skipper Mithali Raj sounded confident.
“We had a fairly comfortable win in the Test match. But this is a completely different format. But we are ready for it as the entire squad is confident after our performance in the Test. We also had a good one-day series against England recently,” said Mithali.
Her South African counterpart, Mignon du Preez, said the team has moved away from the defeat in the Test match. “We couldn’t perform up to our expectations in the Test match. But we had a good outing in the practice game and that has boosted our confidence. Recently, we had a series win over Sri Lanka in similar conditions, and that experience will stand in good stead for us,” said Mignon.
However, the Africans, who do not have the services of star medium pacer Shabnim Ismail, might just find it tough against an Indian side, brimming with some handy batswomen such as Mithali, nad Poonam Raut. This one-day series is being played as a part of the seven-round ICC Women's Championship, a qualifying tournament for the 2017 ICC Women's World Cup.