‘We need to make sure that we bring our best game against India,’ says Australia’s Alex Blackwell

Ahead of India’s clash against Australia in the second semi-final of the Women’s World Cup, Australian batsman Alex Blackwell backed her side to get the job done on Thursday. Australia have already defeated India in this tournament, in the round-robin stage, and lead 34-8 in their head-to-head record.

“We have had some great battles with India over the years and I like to play against the likes of Jhulan Goswami and Mithali Raj,” said Blackwell. “We are going to have a real contest tomorrow. Beating them in the round games was really promising but we know we can improve. We need to make sure that we bring our best game against India tomorrow.”

However, despite India’s poor record against Australia, Blackwell said that Raj’s team has the pedigree to beat her side. “I am very impressed by this India team,” she said. “They have been very proactive as a team. They have got a more aggressive approach towards their batting in particular. They can put some pressure on you with the ball if you are not pro-active as a batter. They are a very dangerous unit.

The key for Australia will be to restrict India’s batting innings, according to Blackwell. “Punam Raut’s innings against us was a beauty,” she said, of the Indian’s century. “We need to minimise their partnerships. They bat deep like us. India have some aggressive batters. Every batter in their lineup is dangerous. Mithali Raj, Raut, Krishnamurthy and my mate Harmanpreet Kaur are guys we have to watch out for.”

Australia’s Nicole Bolton, who has scored 337 runs in the tournament, is confident her team can adapt quickly to conditions and book their place in the final. “We’ll make sure we’re really clear what our plans are,” she said. “On any given day, it’s irrelevant where we play, if we play our best cricket hopefully we’ll win the match.”

She added, “India have played a couple of matches at Derby as well so they’ll be pretty familiar with the conditions as well. We can’t afford to be off our game, as you have seen throughout the tournament, if you have an off day the other team can get a big jump on you.”

Mithali aims to knock out champions

Indian skipper Mithali Raj is confident that her side has the caliber required to knock defending champions out of the tournament. “It’s all about how the teams respond to the situation and the conditions on the day,” said Raj. “But for this Indian team, it is going to be a big game and if we can pull out one win, it will be exceptional by the team,” she added.

However, Raj feels that they have the ‘home advantage’ considering they have played their group stages at Derby. “We’ve played a lot of the group stage here, four games, so we are aware of the conditions and that is our advantage,” said Raj. “But Australia is a very good side. They won the last edition of this tournament and they have a lot of players who have played in high-pressure games,” she added.