Anjum Chopra believes that Harmanpreet needed some time to recover and that did not happen

Former India captain believes skipper Harmanpreet Kaur, who suffered a dip in form in the series against Australia, needed some time to recover after playing in the Women’s Big Bash League (WBBL), Anjum Choprabut They didn’t find it.

Harmanpreet opened the scoring with 26 runs from 21 balls in the opening match of the T20I series against England, before registering two single-digit scores. He then scored 49 and 44 not out in the one-off Test against England, before a dip in form resulted in his record six single-figure scores in the all-format series against Australia, which ended in a seven-wicket defeat for India. Happened. Decisive.

“I always look at things positively. I try to find areas where we challenged them wholeheartedly. Because we won the first T20 match, there were expectations that we would perform similarly in the remaining matches. But this did not happen. Harmanpreet batted brilliantly in the test against England. She was a bit subdued in the ODIs.

“If you look at his last 10 innings, the scores are not impressive. In between he played WBBL. I think he needed some time to heal and that didn’t happen. I saw tiredness in him. He said, she is the captain of the team and there are a lot of expectations from her. So, she needs to continue working hard,” Anjum said in an episode of ‘#Aakashvani’ on JioCinema.

Talking about the decline in India’s batting form after the defeats in the second and third T20Is, Anjum said that it was due to lack of consistency in the batting department. “Even in the first T20I, I don’t think the batting was very solid. Because India won that game and both the openers scored half-centuries, we felt the batting was very good.

“We are talking about the lack of consistency in India’s performances and it is an issue with India’s batting as well. If you look at Shafali Verma since she made her debut, there have been improvements, but are these improvements visible enough that we can talk about them? There is a question mark here.

“Smriti Mandhana being out of form and being blocked in the same areas that Australia did and what they did to improve, or Harmanpreet Kaur’s form. Overall, we were not at all confident in the second T20I. In the third game, by the time we found out who could score at a faster rate, 20 overs were over.”

With the second edition of the WPL scheduled to take place in the February-March window, Anjum sees the tournament as an opportunity for Indian players to showcase their improving talent. “Hopefully, they will do well. The Australian players already know the Indian conditions well and are continuously improving. So, the hope is that Indian talent will also see improvement.

“Saika Ishaq had a very good WPL last year, but when she came into the Indian team, she looked the opposite. Therefore the bridge between domestic cricket and international cricket is very big. At least for Indian players.”