Bowling conundrum for Kaur & Co ahead of second ODI vs Australia

WOMEN'S CRICKET

- GOMESH S @NewChandigarh

AS Beth Mooney and Phoebe Litchfield helped Australia chase down a total of 282 without breaking a sweat in the first ODI at the New PCA Stadium, one thing seemed clear. India were at least 30 runs short as captain Harmanpreet Kaur would admit later and their cautious approach came back to bite them.

Then there were the dropped catches which did not help either. However, underneath all that, one of the phenomena that has gone rather unnoticed is this team management’s preference to pack the five-person bowling attack with spin-

ners. On Sunday, Kaur fielded as many as four frontline finger spinners with a lone seamer in Kranti Goud, who made her ODI debut only a few months ago. They did so while having Arundhati Reddy, Renuka Singh and Sayali Satghare in the squad.