The Indian women's team is badly missing a bowling coach, skipper Harmanpreet Kaur said after her team lost the third T20I against Australia to concede a 1-2 lead in the five-match series. (More Cricket News)
The captain, though, is pleased with the way bowlers are stepping up and taking charge of the situation. India don't have a full-time bowling coach as Ramesh Powar was moved to National Cricket Academy (NCA) and Hrishikesh Kanitkar was named the batting coach of the side two months before the T20 World Cup in South Africa.
Playing Australia is part of team's preparation for the T20 showpiece. India won the second T20 via Super Over but lost the third game by 21 runs on Wednesday.
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"I know we are definitely missing a bowling coach but our bowlers are taking charge," Harmanpreet said in the post-match press conference.
"They are participants in the meetings. They have full responsibility and today (it was) all their plans and they were leading the way, I was just supporting them in the middle."
India conceded more than 170 runs in each of the last three T20s. Medium pacer Pooja Vastrakar's injury ahead of the Australia series has only added to the team's woes.
"(We are missing) Pooja for sure. On these tracks you need a medium pacer," Harmanpreet said.
"Definitely when you bowl back-to-back spin bowling, it allows opposition batters to settle easily. We are definitely missing Pooja because she has the experience of death-overs bowling. We tried Meghna in the first two games but it didn't click."
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In Pooja's absence, Renuka Singh, who has played 30 international since making her debut just over a year ago, is leading the pace attack.
"Renuka has the experience because she has done well in the past six-seven months and has got good results. Whenever we set plans for pace bowlers she takes the lead and our video analysts give us a lot of information," Harmanpreet said.
"Talking about spin bowlers, almost all spinners have played a lot of T20 cricket like Deepti, Radha, Rajeshwari. Devika (Vaidya) is new to the team but she also has the experience of international cricket and has done a lot of homework with respect to international cricket."
India also handed a debut to left-arm pacer Anjali Sarvani in the series. She snapped up two wickets in the third T20 after going wicket-less in the first T20 games.
In fact, Australia could manage just 26 for 2 in the first four overs with Sarvani and Renuka bowling in tandem.
"The way we bowled in the powerplay, especially Renuka and Anjali (was commendable). They were swinging the ball and bowled according to the plan. They were not giving easy runs to the batters," the India skipper said.
The fourth T20 is scheduled here on Saturday.
