Follow UsIndia Women succumbed to their third-lowest score in T20Is after they were bowled out for just 80 in the second game of the series at the Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai, on Saturday (December 9). England went on to chase it down with four wickets and 52 balls to spare.
There is very little turnaround time for the third T20I as the teams clash at the same venue on Sunday (December 10). However, the bowlers did exceedingly well, picking up six wickets and making England work hard for every run. Pacer Renuka Singh and Deepti Sharma were the pick of the bowlers for India, picking up two wickets apiece.
"The pitch was not as challenging that only 70 or 80 runs would be possible. A few more runs could have been scored to get to a total of around 110-115," Deepti said at the post-match press conference.
"But there are such days when conditions do not favour you. As a team, we try to do well but anyone can have an off day. We did not feel, that since we could not do well in the first innings, we will not be able to make any impact whatsoever in the second.
"Had we built partnerships in between, the score would have been a lot different, but we will learn from this going into the match tomorrow [on Sunday]."
Deepti said that her team wanted to take the match as deep as possible after a shoddy show with the bat.
"We wanted to take the game as deep as possible and the bowlers did a good job with that. The bowlers did well since the opposition lost six wickets. It is not easy for the batters and the bowlers deserve credit for pulling things back," the all-rounder said.
"We have played such matches in the past as well. We wanted to maintain a positive approach and keep close-in fielders as much as possible, that we would back each other up and not give up that easily."
Deepti also conceded that the pitch for this game was trickier than it was in the first game. "The wicket could also be a factor since both the matches panned out differently," Deepti said.
"The wicket for the first match was better given that the ball was coming onto the bat nicely and it was easier to bat compared to today when the pitch was a little tricky for the batters and the ball was also skidding a bit."
Player of the match Charlie Dean, who won the player of the match award for her figures of 2 for 16, said that she did not feel that there were any demons on the pitch. "There were quite a lot of wickets today in the game. I would not have any complaints on the pitch myself," she said.
"Of course I would not, I am a bowler. I did not get a chance to have a bat out there but that is good. A lot of our guys were saying it was skidding on a bit but no real demons in the pitch."