India need to fix flaws ahead of tougher challenges in World Cup

Hosts India would have been thrilled that they were on top of the eight-team table in the Women's World Cup after getting two wins out of two to start their campaign. But their captain Harmanpreet Kaur admitted at the presentation after the 88-run victory against Pakistan that "there are a lot of areas" they still need to work on.

India's next three games are against South Africa, Australia and England - all serious semi-finalist contenders - so let's have a look at what these concerns could be, which they would want to work on to bring out their A game, starting with the South Africa match on Thursday in Visakhapatnam.

Harmanpreet seemed pleased that India would now head back home from Colombo for their remaining five games, to figure out "what is the best combination for us". In the two matches so far, India went with only five bowling options, including two allrounders, which could be a much bigger risk against the higher-ranked sides going forward. Such has been the rise of Kranti Goud, and the spin strangle from Deepti Sharma, Sneh Rana and Shree Charani, that both Sri Lanka and Pakistan hardly got close to their targets. But if Visakhapatnam offers flatter conditions, India might feel the need to have a sixth bowling option in their ranks.

This exact scenario arose in the recent bilateral ODIs against Australia just before the World Cup, when India played six bowlers in the last two ODIs. That, however, was a result of their No. 5 Jemimah Rodrigues falling sick after the first game. India then took the call of replacing Rodrigues with a bowler, which worked as India bowled the world champions out for just 190 in the second ODI. With Rodrigues fit again and having scored two ODI hundreds this year, India now face the challenge of trying to fit in a sixth bowler without disturbing the team balance.

To add to India's headaches, allrounder Amanjot Kaur missed the Pakistan game with a fever, and her replacement Renuka Singh swung the ball nicely in Colombo, finishing with frugal figures of 10-1-29-0. That makes Renuka hard to drop even if Amanjot regains fitness. Amanjot bowled for an hour in the Visakhapatnam nets on Tuesday evening before batting for another half an hour, which bodes well for India's squad depth.

The ripping delivery from left-arm spinner Inoka Ranaweera to dismiss Rodrigues for a golden duck in Guwahati could already be among the balls of the tournament. Ranaweera triggered an India collapse on the night, with the big wickets of Harleen Deol, Rodrigues and Harmanpreet in just five balls to reduce the hosts to 121 for 5 before the lower-order rescue came about.

It didn't look as bad against Pakistan, but when their left-arm spinner Sadia Iqbal bowled her second spell after the field had spread out, she sent down six tight overs for just 14 runs to tie down the right-hand batters Pratika Rawal, Deol and Harmanpreet. Only Rawal was able to hit Iqbal for a boundary, but she lost her off stump the very next ball after failing to pick Iqbal's arm ball. In her next over, Iqbal nearly had Harmanpreet as well with another arm ball, and soon induced an edge from the India captain while also beating her a few times with turn and bounce on a pitch that was aiding the bowlers.

Come Thursday, India's batters will be up against South Africa's left-arm spinner Nonkululeko Mlaba, bowling fresh on the back of her 4 for 40 on a batter-friendly surface against New Zealand in Indore. Like Ranaweera did to India, Mlaba scripted a New Zealand collapse with four quick wickets - including that of the dangerous Sophie Devine - with deceptive pace variations, and her angle from around the wicket. How India's right-hand batters tackle Mlaba on Thursday could be one of the deciding factors for who wins the match.

It seems like a distant dream now that India had scripted their historic series win - even if in T20Is - on English soil barely three months ago with major contributions coming from their fielding. They were taking catches in the deep, the fielders in the circle were cutting downs ones and twos with quick work, and sharp throws were sending batters back after finding them short.

But come the World Cup, the hosts have started with a fairly average show in their two games so far. The bowlers have created chances but the fielders have put down regulation catches. It has not cost them a game yet, but India wouldn't want that to happen as the league stage picks up pace. The most worrying thing about this has been that a lot of the misfields - there were at least three in the first 25 overs against Pakistan - have come from senior players like Harmanpreet and Smriti Mandhana, and it has not been a result of dew yet.

Even though India haven't had the luxury of batting on the flattest tracks of in this World Cup yet, their slow starts and the collapses which have followed have come under scrutiny. India's powerplay scores have read 43 and 54 so far. Mandhana's low scores - she has only got 8 and 23 in the two matches so far - result in India slowing down considerably more often than not. Mandhana had recently smashed the second-fastest women's ODI century - that too against Australia - and has had to take the onus of being the quicker scorer in the opening stand after the attacking Shafali Verma was replaced by Rawal at the top. Rawal is a lot more consistent, but has a strike rate of 83.65 compared to Mandhana's 109.49 in the last 19 ODIs.

Deol, India's No. 3, has an even poorer strike rate of 81.82 in those 19 games, and of 77.18 in 16 ODIs this year. So India's scoring rate inevitably takes a further dip when Deol and Rawal bat together. The pair has been India's slowest since the start of 2024 for any pair to have tallied at least 200 runs.

When Rawal and Deol cannot find the boundaries, they struggle to keep the run rate ticking with regular strike rotation. Against Pakistan, their partnership read 19 off 35 balls, which saw 27 dots (77%) because 14 of those runs came through boundaries. Opposite Sri Lanka, their stand faced 96 balls, of which 56 were dots (58.3%), for 67 runs. The stand featured only two fours and a six after the powerplay.

The most evident concern in India's batting so far has undoubtedly been their collapses - being reduced to 124 for 6, and 159 for 5 - which left a lot of work to be done for the lower order. Come a team like South Africa, Australia or England, India would want more runs from their experienced trio of Mandhana, Harmanpreet and Rodrigues, who have a collective highest score of 32 among them so far.