India coach Amol Muzumdar reiterated that his side has a settled batting lineup and doesn’t want to tinker around it with a lot after the batting collapse and loss to Australia in Vizag on Sunday, October. After Smriti Mandhana and Pratika Rawal put on 155 runs for the first wicket, India continued with their usual batting order and sent in Harleen Deol next. The hosts had a chance to send in a power-hitter at No.3 but opted to stick with Harleen, who ended up scoring 38 off 42 balls.

India also suffered a late collapse as they crumbled from 294 for five to 330 all out in the space of 5.5 overs. This would cost India as they lost the match by three wickets. Speaking at the post-match press conference, Muzumdar said that when there is a need, his side can be flexible with their batting order.

“I think we’ve got a very settled batting lineup — I would not like to shuffle around too much. But when the need arises, we are flexible about it. In fact, you answered your own question — the first part was that we’ve been flexible enough in the lower order.”

“We do have that luxury of sending Richa in, and at times, we’ve got the services of Deepti Sharma — who can go out there and give us the option of a left-hander, and a player who grinds and gets those singles easily. So yes, we do have those options in the lower order, but I wouldn’t want to tinker too much with the top-order batting lineup,” said Muzumdar. \

‘India need to finish well with bat and ball’

Muzumdar said that his side needs to learn how to finish a cricket game well with bat and ball. They failed to do well with the willow against the Aussies and couldn’t close out the game well with the ball against South Africa.

The India coach said this is one attribute that he wants his side to address soon after their loss in Vizag.

“According to me, the finish is very important in a cricket game. I always say — even in the dressing room — yes, we need a good start, but we need a better finish.”

“If you see the finish we had in the South Africa game — as far as bowling is concerned — in the last five overs, we ended up losing that game. And even today, if we’d gotten another 20 runs, maybe things would’ve been different. But at the same time, it’s been gradual progress for us, and there are a lot of learnings. I keep talking about positives and learnings — one of the things to learn is to finish well,” said Muzumdar.

India will play against England on October 19 in their next clash.

– Ends