India women’s head coach Amol Muzumdar focus on fielding and fitness and said it we will see some results out of it.
“When I took over last December, we had said that fielding and fitness have been the cornerstone and we have been driving that message to the group. They [the players] have responded really nicely to that,” Muzumdar said. “Fielding is a work in progress and we are working very hard towards it and trust me, you will see some results out of it.”
India is playing three ODIs, one Test match and three T20Is against South Africa over the next four weeks with the ODI series starting tomorrow.
Muzumdar believes that the continuity is very important leading up to the World Cup. He believes that by the end of the matches with South Africa and Asia Cup starting July 16, they should be ready for the World Cup.
“We have had a fantastic preparation in the last eight weeks,” Muzumdar said. “We went to Bangladesh and had a desired result; 5-0 we won the T20 series. We also practiced over there, in the same ground where we would be playing the World Cup. We’ve had a couple of camps before this series. We had a split camp. The bowler’s camp was held at NCA here in Bengaluru and the batter’s camp was held in Navi Mumbai. It was a concentrated camp and we had the fruitful desired results for the camp.”
Muzumdar on Smriti Mandhana: “She is a fantastic leader. We do have a leadership group within the team and Smriti is a big factor in that,” Muzumdar said. “Going forward, she definitely has got a role to play. She has a good camaraderie with the current captain Harmanpreet Kaur and we are all working together. She is definitely a fantastic leader as we’ve seen in the WPL. She has won the title for RCB.”
