Surprised that all my bowlers struggled: Mithali Raj

Indian skipper Mithali Raj, smarting from being knocked out of the ICC Women’s World Cup after a 138-run loss, admitted that she did not expect Sri Lanka to set a target of 283 runs and was let down by her bowling attack. “Honestly, 283 is a target I didn’t expect from Sri Lanka. You expect one or two bowlers to be off colour on a day, but you don’t expect all the bowlers to be off-colour. It’s very disappointing to be out… especially as the host team. This was a great chance at the World Cup in home conditions,” said the dejected 30-year-old. [caption id=“attachment_615058” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Mithali Raj. AFP.[/caption] Firstpost asked her whether India underestimated their opponents and whether the loss was a result of complacency creeping into the side: “It’s not about complacency. But I will say that I had faith in my bowling attack to not concede 280-odd runs. If you observe, most of the runs were scored square of the wickets, so it shows where we were bowling.” India made one change from the side that faced England and West Indies, with Nagarajan Nilanjana making way for Shubhlakhsmi Sharma. With Nilanjana being the top wicket-taker of the team before the match against SL, Mithali was asked to explain the exclusion: “Nilanjana did take wickets but she was expensive too. So we decided to give a new bowler a chance, expecting her to be raring to have a go.” Even though the target was 283, India needed to score 251 runs to ensure passage to the next stage via net run-rate. Mithali said that the players were aware of this but were still aiming for an outright win: “We were aware, but we wanted to win the match. And to chase down 283 runs, we needed a good start–something which we didn’t have.” After losing Poonam Raut in the third over, it was up to the skipper and Thirush Kamini to set the stage for the run-chase. But both batters could not put up a partnership of more than 31 runs. She said that losing Harmanpreet Kaur was when she thought the match was a tight one: “After losing Harmanpreet– it meant that out top three batters were out. That is when I knew that the match was going to be very tight.” Mithali hasn’t had a great tournament with the bat. She has scored just 29 runs but said that she wasn’t thinking about the tournament as a player yet. “As a player, fluctuations in form happen… it’s part of sport. I don’t think too much into it. As captain however, I’m very  disappointed that I couldn’t get team into the tournament. She was also quick to dismiss any suggestions of Jhulan Goswami having let her down (Jhulan went for 63 runs in 10 overs): “It’s not about one player. It could be her off day, but I didn’t expect everyone to have an off day. One bad day doesn’t mean her position in the team is affected.” India still have one match to play–they take on Pakistan for the 7th/8th place playoff, but Jhulan said that she was not thinking about that game yet: “I’m still not in a position to think about that game.” The Indians may have been knocked out, but Mithali said there were still some positives from the tournament: “I can’t comment on the future of the national team, but Harmanpreet Kaur, Thirush Kamini and Poonam Raut all ensure that the future is bright.”