Playing sensibly put India in driver’s seat

Mumbai, December 22

India wicketkeeper-batter Richa Ghosh today said playing as per merit of the ball and being judicious helped the hosts gain advantage over Australia in the ongoing one-off Test here.

India lead Australia by 157 runs in the first innings after two days’ play.

India were 376/7 at stumps after the second day in reply to Australia’s first-innings total of 219, with debutant Ghosh recording her maiden fifty and putting on 113 runs with Jemimah Rodrigues.

“We wanted to react as per (the merit of) the ball,” Ghosh said after the end of play at the Wankhede Stadium. “If there was a delivery (in the zone) to bring out the sweep shot, we would go for it, or else we would resort to defending. When Jemimah came out our only target was to build a partnership and how to go about it and that encouraged me,” she added.

Ghosh predicted spinners to have a greater say in the remainder of the game.

“We saw some of the deliveries keeping low while some of them were bouncing off the surface. If the spinners manage to find some turn then it could be difficult for the batters. Otherwise, the pitch would get slow gradually,” she said.

Four batters — Smriti Mandhana (74), Rodrigues (73), Ghosh (52) and Deepti Sharma (70 not out) — shone bright for India with the bat.

“We discussed it when Smriti di was (batting) there as to how the ball was bouncing off the pitch,” Ghosh said. We took our time to understand the bounce by playing one or two deliveries.” — PTI

Oz coach bemoans Day 1’s performance

Australia head coach Shelley Nitschke lamented her team’s inability to score runs on the first day, which has pegged them back. “India showed there is plenty of runs out there if you can just be patient. We probably were not able to build the pressure,” said Nitschke. “When we did give them something to hit they made sure that it went to the boundary. They showed us that that they were patient and built some really good partnerships, which we did not do as we would have liked to in the first innings,” she said.