Worked on varying my pace after South Africa series: Poonam Yadav

After picking up her first One-Day International (ODI) wicket since November 2019, India Women leg-spinner Poonam Yadav reveals she worked on how to vary her pace in order to bamboozle the batters.  Poonam failed to pick up a single wicket in the four matches she played during the home series against South Africa. Although she was expensive against England Women in the second ODI, she managed to pick up two wickets, that of skipper Heather Knight and wicketkeeper Amy Jones.

"I have worked on my field placements and just my general approach. Players were playing me off the back foot, what matters is the pace and how the wicket is acting," Yadav, said during the post-match virtual press conference.

"I worked on varying my pace and I had time between these two series to work that out."

"I got a wicket after a long time. For any bowler, it matters to get among the wickets and contribute to the team and complete the spell. I was a little expensive today, I could have done better," she added.

India put in a better performance in the second ODI, but an unbeaten 92-run stand for the sixth wicket between Sophia Dunkley (73*) and Katherine Brunt (33*), helped England taken an unassailable 2-0 lead in the three-match ODI series.  India rode on a fifty from skipper Mithali Raj, but yet another batting collapse saw them register an under-par total once again.

"We lost wickets but still managed a decent total. We could have restricted them. Our bowlers did well too but we could have restricted them a little more. Our fielding was better this time.

"We are seeing collapses often, but I think they'll do better going forward," Yadav said.

Yadav felt that despite the loss, the Indian team's body language had improved compared to the previous outing. "It was a bad day for the bowlers in the first ODI, but today we fought till the end and even though we lost, our body language was so better. Hopefully, we'll take that momentum forward and definitely register wins the coming matches," she said.

With the ODI World Cup in New Zealand scheduled to be played next year, Yadav said, We're experimenting with bowling plans and field positions for all bowlers in the matches we get now. We tried today too and some of those plans worked for us. This will be very important as we get closer to the World Cup." 

(With inputs from PTI)