ICC Women’s World Cup 2017: Mithali Raj praises Sushma Verma, Jhulan Goswami’s heroic efforts

India skipper Mithali Raj said she knew it would not be easy for Pakistan to chase down 170 as the pitch deteriorated in the second innings during their ICC Women’s World Cup match.

Batting first, India suffered a batting collapse before reaching 169 for nine and Mithali praised Sushma Verma and Jhulan Goswami for their lower-order contributions.

“When you lose first wicket in first 10 overs, it naturally puts us on the backfoot. Though there were decent partnerships, there were two back-to-back wickets so we were on the backfoot,” Mithali told reporters after the match.

“The advice or suggestion that we gave to the batters was to play till the 40th over but unfortunately again we lost wickets and in the end we had Sushma and Jhulan, those runs were crucial because it got us to 170 and we were looking for that score when we lost the top 4.

“When we reached 170, I knew it was just a matter of taking those early breakthroughs because no matter how good a chasing team, there is always pressure of a good start even if you are chasing 150. The wicket did deteriorate later on because the spinners did get a lot of turn,” …read more