Is India’s scoring rate an issue? How Women in Blue have fared in T20Is compared to other teams

India revived their ICC Women’s T20 World Cup campaign with a six-wicket victory over arch-rivals Pakistan on Sunday. The Women in Blue were off to a forgettable start in the tournament, suffering a 58-run thrashing at the hands of two-time runners-up New Zealand in Dubai on Friday, the defeat leaving a massive dent in their Net Run Rate (NRR).

Two days later at the same venue, the Women in Blue came up with a much better performance, especially with the ball. Seamer Arundhati Reddy (3/19) and leg-spinner Shreyanka Patil (2/12) led the way as India restricted Pakistan to a modest 105/8.

India managed their chase fairly comfortably despite losing the wicket of senior opener Smriti Mandhana fairly early. Shafali Verma top-scored with a knock of 32 off 35 deliveries and shared a crucial 43-run second-wicket partnership with Jemimah Rodrigues (23 off 28) that put the Indians in the driving seat.

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Skipper Harmanpreet Kaur later chipped in with an unbeaten 29 off 24 deliveries as India chased the target down with seven deliveries to spare, opening their account in the tournament in the process.

Read | India's semi-final qualification scenarios in Women's T20 World Cup after beating Pakistan

Despite collecting their first points of the tournament on Sunday, India still are a long way off from the top two spots in Group A. India currently are tied on two points with Pakistan, who defeated Sri Lanka in their opening game on Thursday, as well as group leaders New Zealand and defending champions Australia.

And India are the only team in Group A with a win to their name that still have a Net Run Rate (NRR) in the negative (-1.217). The White Ferns currently have the best NRR of all teams (+2.900), followed by defending champions Australia (+1.908) – who opened their campaign with a six-wicket victory over Sri Lanka on Saturday.

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And despite their setback on Sunday, Pakistan remain ahead of India with an NRR of +0.555.

Going back to India’s performance on Sunday, while they were clinical with the ball, they certainly could have found themselves in a better situation by scoring at a quicker pace.

With the target marginally above 100 and the dire situation that they find themselves in at the moment, Harmanpreet and Co could have targeted achieving the target with four or more overs to spare to try and leapfrog their arch-rivals on the table.

Read | India's clinical bowling display key to beating Pakistan but concerns over batting persist

India vice-captain Mandhana acknowledged the NRR issue during the post-match presentation ceremony, where she filled in for the injured Harmanpreet.

“In the field we were very good. Better start with the bat would have been good, but we will take that win. We did think about it (the NRR). Me and Shafali could not time the ball . We didn’t want to end up losing a lot of wickets. We were a little calculative. The NRR is in our head,” Mandhana said.

Which brings us to the question — Is the Indian women’s cricket team’s approach with the bat an issue? Especially in a format where the strike rate is paramount?

We take a look at how Indian batters have been scoring in T20Is recently on the basis of parameters such as team strike rate, run rate and more:

Team strike rate

In women’s T20Is that have taken place since 2023, India have a collective team strike rate of 114.32, the fourth-highest of all teams. Australia lead the way on this front with a strike rate of 128.90 and are followed by England (127.29) and South Africa (115.98).

It surely isn’t a coincidence that Australia and England, the two teams leading this list, are also the teams with the best Win/Loss ratio during this period. Six-time T20 world champions Australia lead the way with a W/L ratio of 4.400 and a win percent of 0.8 while the corresponding numbers for England are 3.285 and 0.7 respectively.

Individual strike rate

The team strike rate is largely a reflection of how quickly its individual players have been scoring runs during this period of time, and it’s only natural for the individual list concerning batting strike rate for T20Is since 2023 to be dominated by Australia and English batters.

The top five, with a minimum of 50 runs, comprises Australia’s Georgia Wareham (153.60), England’s Bryony Smith (153.57) and Sophie Ecclestone (153.22) as well as Wareham’s teammates Phoebe Litchfield (152) and Grace Harris (150.86).

The top 10 has just one Indian name — wicketkeeper-batter Richa Ghosh who sits at the ninth spot with a strike rate of 141.71.

Team run rate

Moving away from matches since the start of 2023 and focusing only on the games in the ongoing T20 World Cup, India are lagging far behind in terms of run rate. In fact, they don’t even make the top five.

New Zealand currently lead the way with a run-rate of 8, thanks to their total of 160 against India on Friday. They are followed by 2016 champions West Indies (6.91) and South Africa (6.67), the former currently leading Group B.

Defending champions Australia are placed fourth with a run-rate of 6.55 with inaugural champions England sitting at fifth 5.90.

India and Pakistan have relatively similar run rates — 5.55 and 5.52 respectively after playing two matches each. And the former will have a lot of catching up to do if it is to reach the T20 World Cup semis for the fourth consecutive time.