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Follow UsIt might sound completely bonkers in a non-cricketing context, but Indians have great memories associated with the word ‘desert storm’. Sachin Tendulkar, Sharjah, Dubai, UAE — all of these words, when combined together, are harbingers of happy memories for Indian cricket fans.
However, the last few years haven’t been kind to that rose-tinted nostalgia. First, the Indian men had a disastrous run in the 2021 T20 World Cup. They began their campaign with a 10-wicket loss against Pakistan and followed it up with an eight-wicket loss to New Zealand.
Now, the Indian women have done something similar by being blown to smithereens by New Zealand. They had a horrific start to their campaign and lost their first game of the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup 2024 by 58 runs.
Coming into this game, India were massive favourites as their opponents were coming with a 10-match losing streak in T20Is. However, right from the first ball, it felt like it was India who had the burden of the losses hung around their neck.
Pooja Vastrakar bowled the first ball of the game short, and veteran Suzie Bates had no qualms in sending it straight away to the boundary. Georgia Plimmer, who has had a quiet year with the bat just like most of her teammates, started showing intent from her end as well by dancing down the track and targeting Deepti Sharma’s off-spin.
Under attack from both ends, skipper Harmanpreet Kaur even called for a huddle in the middle of a powerplay over. However, it didn’t help much as the White Ferns were already 55/0 at the end of six overs — the most runs conceded by India in a powerplay in T20 World Cups.
Nerves started showing up even more after the shambolic fielding effort from the Indians. Despite the team management's focus on fielding and fitness, India’s fielding continued to be poor in the first six overs. Renuka Thakur let a ball pass through her legs for a four, and wicket-keeper Richa Ghosh dropped a simple chance of Bates.
When you compare how the Indians fared with the bat in the powerplay, you’ll find that the tale can tell the entire match story of this game of the two powerplays.
While New Zealand scored 55/0 on the powerplay, India were 43/3 in comparison, having lost three out of their five main batters: Smriti Mandhana, Shafali Verma, and Harmanpreet.
While both Verma and Mandhana fell after failing to connect their attempted shots, skipper Harmanpreet’s batting at number three failed to make a lot of sense. She is generally a slow starter in T20I cricket, with a strike rate of just 100 in the first 10 balls in 26 innings since 2023.
That caused further damage to India, as the chase never got any momentum in the powerplay. She played 14 deliveries for her 15 runs, chasing 161 runs, which was never going to give India the required impetus to carry forward the chase constructively.
That’s exactly what happened, as both Jemimah Rodrigues and Richa Ghosh, who are generally free-flowing batters, didn’t follow their usual rhythm. Richa especially was poor, looking completely woebegone on a slow track where it was hard to time or generate pace in your shots.
India were also slightly disadvantaged by the toss, as they batted second on a pitch that had already hosted a T20 game an hour ago. When they came on to bat, 60 overs were already played on the pitch, and the ball was gripping off the pitch for the spinners. Even the slower deliveries from the pacers were proving tricky to hit.
Once the conditions combined with the lack of rhythm in India’s batting, it was just carnage. The storm had arrived, and every single batter except Harmanpreet, Vastrakar and Asha Sobhana suffered a soft dismissal as they failed to clear the fielders while attempting their big shots.
Their problems while batting were also exacerbated by the fact that they couldn’t control the death overs while bowling despite making a small comeback in the first innings after the powerplay. They conceded only 54 runs between overs 7-15 and picked up three White Fern wickets. However, that’s when Sophie Devine unleashed her batting prowess and scored an unbeaten 57 in just 36 deliveries.
India looked hapless overall, and the failure would have mentally affected them. However, such a collectively out-of-form performance should also be expected because India hardly had any preparation for the tournament after the Asia Cup except an internal camp in Bengaluru. Meanwhile, New Zealand had played a three-T20I series against Australia just a week before the tournament started.
The disparity between the two teams on show was also a function of that and not merely representative of the skill levels of both sides.
After such a huge loss, India’s net run rate has plummeted to -2.9. Their tragedy is that they are placed in the group of death along with Australia, New Zealand, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. With Pakistan already having defeated Sri Lanka, India can’t afford a slip-up anymore if they wish to qualify for the semifinals.
They have a game against Pakistan in less than two days, where they somehow not only need to collect themselves after being blown away in a storm but also summon all their strength in a tournament that couldn’t have begun on a worse note for them.
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