Former India captain Jhulan Goswami feels that this is not the right time to do a post-mortem of Harmanpreet Kaur’s side crashing to a heavy defeat against Australia in the T20 World Cup final.
The Meg Lanning-led side put up a dominant show to smash 184/4, and in reply, India meekly surrendered for 99 in front of a capacity crowd of 86,174.
“It’s very disappointing,” Goswami told PTI. “But don’t forget that they made us proud in this World Cup. But it’s not the time to do a post-mortem. They would be very heartbroken and as Indians we need to stand by them now,” she added.
“I feel very proud for every player in the team. They have done extremely well and made India proud. Remember they had beaten Australia in the group stages.”
The 37-year-old said observed that India’s average age was far lesser compared to some of the other teams. “Please do remember that India had the youngest team in the World Cup in terms of average age. There were three players aged between 16 to 19 [Jemimah Rodrigues, Shafali Verma, Richa Ghosh and Radha Yadav]. They will learn a lot of things and they are the future of Indian cricket,” she said.
India were hugely let down big time by their skipper Harmanpreet, who had a forgettable tournament, tallying just 30 runs.
The veteran pacer said: “In such a tournament, every player has pressure. Maybe, she is going through an inconsistent phase. She didn’t get runs. People talk if you don’t get runs in a big tournament. But we all know what her calibre is. It’s not the right time to talk about her performance.”
Goswami added: “It’s time to see how she led the team despite her poor run. She stood there for the players and fought well. She is obviously a good leader and has led the team from the front. They will definitely come out strong.”
India’s newest batting sensation Shafali Verma dropped a regulation catch off Healy, something that proved to be costly for India.
“She’s just a 16-year-old girl, who made her debut six months ago and she’s now no 1 ranked player in ICC list. We must back her. And missing catches is a part of the game,” Goswami said.
The speedster attributed Australia’s dominating show to their strong grassroots level cricket.
“Australia have much positive cricket. Obviously their grassroots level cricket much ahead of us. We are slowly getting there. These are all part of a learning process.”
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