Jemimah Rodrigues issues rallying cry to deflated India after opening their campaign with a stinging loss to New Zealand.
Jemimah Rodrigues has egged her teammates to put the loss against NZ on the back-burner as quickly as possible.
India opened their World Cup campaign in the worst possible way. They were beaten by a big margin of 58 runs, making only 102 in response to New Zealand’s 160.
According to Jemimah Rodrigues, the way India responds to their T20 World Cup setback against New Zealand would reveal the nature of the team.
“Today would be the game we would like to forget, because this is a World Cup,” Rodrigues said. “We need to keep moving on and keep picking ourselves up. We can’t stay stuck at this game. Need to pick ourselves up, and I think that will show the character of this team.
“We know every game from here is so crucial for us. All of us know that, but at the same time, we’re going to go one game at a time and just make sure we stick to our process and do our job well. If we can do that, I think we play our best cricket, I think we can win matches.”
India had a poor game in all aspects. There were dropped catches and misfields while fielding, and an ordinary bowling performance. All this was with a diabolical essay with the bat. None of India’s batters were able to cross 20. Harmanpreet’s 15 was the highest score in a sorry-looking batting card.
Rodrigues said her side wasn’t necessarily caught off-guard by New Zealand attacking in the powerplay.
“They came out with a lot of intent,” she said. “We did create opportunities, but unfortunately we didn’t make the most of them. Then the way we came back after the start was … I mean, not many positives in this game. But still, going forward, we need to have the right approach because the tournament is not over. We need to take some positives from this game and a lot of learnings from this game.
“It’s not the easiest of conditions. It’s really hot here in Dubai, but I think we’ve got enough time to acclimatise to the conditions. So we don’t give an excuse, like it’s too hot or whatever it is. We just need to do our job and win the match for the team. So when it comes to conditions, I think we are very comfortable to the conditions. It’s got better from the first day we’ve come here. So I think we are very ready for this and all of us stay in India, so we are very familiar to such conditions.”