We just want to go out there, enjoy our cricket: Harmanpreet Kaur on ICC Women’s T20 World Cup

Mumbai : As Team India are gearing up to go one better at the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup, India captain Harmanpreet Kaur said that they are thinking about the areas to improve every day and the team just want to go there and enjoy cricket.

The runners-up of the last ICC Women’s T20 World Cup are gearing up to go one better at the 2023 edition of the tournament in South Africa.

India are placed in Group B alongside England, Ireland, Pakistan and West Indies. Their World Cup campaign begins on 12 February with the clash against their neighbours Pakistan in Cape Town.

The top two teams from each group will make it to the semi-finals. Speaking on Star Sports show ‘Believe in Blue’, captain of the Indian women’s cricket team Harmanpreet Kaur further spoke about how the team is going to approach the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup and how they will adapt to the conditions in South Africa.

“Now we aren’t thinking of too many things, how it’s going to work or not going to work. We only think about whether we can do it or not and which areas do we feel that we can improve on even 1% every day. So, I think other than just thinking about whether it’s going to work or not going to work, we just want to go there and enjoy our cricket,” Harmanpreet said.

Harmanpreet will lead India for the third consecutive time in ICC Women’s T20 World Cup with Smriti Mandhana acting as her deputy. India were finalists in the last edition of the T20 World Cup in 2020 but stumbled in the last hurdle against Australia. Harmanpreet Kaur and team will not only be looking to replicate the performances from 2020 but go one step further when they head to South Africa.

“I think, for the past few years we have been travelling, so there won’t be much difference to us. But recently, we had a camp in Bangalore where the ball was good, we trained specially in a few areas we wanted to work. Before that we have tri-series, in the tri series we will have enough time to get settled in those conditions,” she added.

Squad members: Harmanpreet Kaur (Captain), Smriti Mandhana, Shafali Verma, Yastika Bhatia, Richa Ghosh, Jemimah Rodrigues, Harleen Deol, Deepti Sharma, Devika Vaidya, Radha Yadav, Renuka Thakur, Anjali Sarvani, Pooja Vastrakar, Rajeshwari Gayakwad and Shikha Pandey.

Reserves: Sabbhineni Meghana, Sneh Rana and Meghna Singh.