Women's WC IND vs PAK: Need to be in top flight

Mithali Raj. Pic/ICC Twitter

The Indian women's cricket would hope that its bowlers find top form to complement a solid batting unit's efforts when it begins its quest for an elusive ICC World Cup trophy with the opening match against arch-rivals Pakistan here on Sunday.

Runners up in the 2017 and 2005 editions, India are eager to go one step ahead and claim the title that has eluded them, especially skipper Mithali Raj and veteran pacer Jhulan Goswami, who will be playing their last World Cup.

The Indian team reached New Zealand a month earlier in order to acclimatise to the conditions.

Bowling, a concern

However, the bowlers struggled compared to the batting unit, which managed to score in excess of 250 runs five times in the seven 50 over outings, including two warm-up matches.

The bowling unit let the team down throughout the series against New Zealand, which India lost 1-4. They did put up a much improved performance in the fifth ODI and the two warm-up games and Raj will hope that bth the batting and bowling units can fire in unison. "From the past series or the warm-up games, all we can take is confidence, and how you negotiate the conditions in the middle, how you play according to the situation is just very important," said Mithali in the pre-match virtual press conference.

Mithali said Pakistan is a good side and her team won't take them lightly in their campaign opener. "I think Pakistan is also a good side and I am sure they have prepared very hard for the tournament and so have we.

"Every team here, we can't take any team lightly. So we will get into playing every game with a lot of intensity and with a lot of confidence," she said."As a team, we are excited to get into the World Cup and starting our campaign tomorrow. We are not looking at it as Pakistan we are playing against, we are looking at a team, which has come prepared and we are equally prepared to put our best foot forward. We want to set a momentum going into the tournament and that is how we look at the tournament."

Will Harmanpreet bowl?

However, it remains to be seen if Mithali hands the ball to Harmanpreet Kaur. The team would have breathed a sigh of relief after Kaur found herself among runs after a prolonged rough patch.

Pakistan, on the other hand, are the lowest ranked team (eight) in the tournament. They qualified for the World Cup owing to their ranking after the qualifiers were cancelled midway last year due to COVID-19.

Having ended three times at the bottom, Pakistan's best-ever finish at the World Cup had come in 2009 when they reached the Super 6 stage. They will be hoping they can make the knockouts in this edition.

Bismah Maroof and Co. are also coming off back-to-back wins in the warm up matches. They beat New Zealand before getting the better of Bangladesh.

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