Australia series highlights India Women's fielding woes

NEW DELHI: India's women's cricket team couldn't have asked for a stiffer test than Australia in the recently concluded three-match ODI series heading into the Women's ODI World Cup. Though India ended the seven-time world champions' 13-match winning streak, they couldn't sustain the momentum and lost the series 1-2.Go Beyond The Boundary with our YouTube channel. SUBSCRIBE NOW!However, the series did expose the chinks in India's armour, none more alarming than their shoddy fielding. The Indian team dropped a dozen catches in the three matches, and their ground fielding fell apart in the final game in Delhi.Their performance in the field would be the biggest headache for head coach Amol Muzumdar and his support staff as they look to train and play two warm-up matches in Bengaluru before they begin their World Cup campaign against Sri Lanka in Guwahati on Sept 30. While some of the players tried to play down the poor fielding performance as a one-off thing, skipper Harmanpreet Kaur and deputy Smriti Mandhana were more forthcoming and admitted it was a cause for concern.“Fielding is something we are working hard on, but unfortunately, we are still missing chances. We will sit and discuss. This is something that is costing us,” Harmanpreet said. “There is a lot of difference (between India and Australia) in the fielding. We need to find consistency in the team in terms of fielding as a unit together and not individual brilliance, so that's one thing which we thought that we must address before the World Cup.”On the bowling front too, there is scope for improvement. Young seamer Kranti Goud was the most impressive and emerged as the top wicket-taker with five wickets. Fellow pacer Renuka was returning to action after a lengthy injury lay-off and appeared rusty while Arundhati Reddy proved expensive.Among the spinners, Sneh Rana and Deepti Sharma contributed with their all-round skills, but the performance of left-arm spinner Radha Yadav was a letdown. Though India plundered 942 runs from three matches, they relied heavily on the pyrotechnics of Smriti Mandhana at the top.The worry in the batting department is not just the over-dependence on Mandhana but also their inability to up the tempo in the latter half of the innings against stronger rivals.