Indore: When India’s team sheet came after being put into bowling first by England in a crucial 2025 Women’s ODI World Cup clash at the Holkar Stadium, everyone was left jaw-dropped when India’s keenly awaited tactical reshuffle resulted in Jemimah Rodrigues being left out.
In a bid to bolster the bowling attack and go in with six bowlers, something which they faced criticism before, India opted to leave out a specialist batter in Jemimah and bring in seamer Renuka Singh Thakur.
The move reflected India’s intent to strengthen their bowling and use the seamer’s inswinger to rattle England’s line-up, even though it came at the cost of sacrificing batting depth in a high-stakes encounter.
The bold move didn’t really pay off as a usually disciplined Renuka didn’t have much command on her inswing. With the inswing not being really accurate, Renuka also drifted down the legside and even gave width to Tammy Beaumont and Amy Jones to get boundaries easily.
Though the 125-run partnership between Smriti Mandhana and Harmanpreet Kaur steadied India’s chase and momentarily masked Jemimah’s absence, they ultimately fell just short by four runs. In the post-game presser, Smriti admitted the move to leave out Jemimah for Renuka was a tough one, but done for the sake of team balance.
“In the last two matches, for sure, we thought that five bowling options are not good enough especially on a flat track like Indore or how maybe the Vishakhapatnam second match played (against Australia). So, five bowling options means we are not privileged enough to have our batters who could bowl few overs, which a lot of other teams can do that,” she said. IANS