India women’s captain Mithali Raj wants to learn how to win tosses from MS Dhoni
India women’s cricket team captain Mithali Raj wants to take an example from MS Dhoni on how to win shots after being asked about a change in her call on day 1 of the pink ball test against Australia on the Gold Coast.
Mithali lost the toss yet again but her team still managed to dominate Australia for the majority of four days as the one-off Test ended in a draw on Sunday.
The 38-year-old revealed after the Test that her teammates often pull her leg because of her unlucky streak with the coin toss.
“I didn’t want that to become a legacy. The way the girls have been pulling my leg for that! So I thought I should change. I really think I need to take a cue from MS Dhoni on how to win a toss,” Raj joked at the post-match press conference.
AUSTRALIA ESCAPE WITH A DRAW
Smriti Mandhana’s classy 127 on Day 2 combined with superb bowling efforts from Jhulan Goswami, Pooja Vastrakar and Deepti Sharma helped the visitors dictate terms in a game were 80 plus overs were lost in the first two days due to rain accompanied by lightning.
The weather interruptions made it impossible for the match to produce a result even and Raj said that it was a “tricky” call as to when India would declare their second innings on Day 4 and try for an outside chance of victory against Australia.
Many expected India to declare their second innings at tea but they did come out for a few more overs setting up an improbable victory target of 272 for the hosts in a quarter of session. “It was a little tricky as to when we could declare. Getting eight wickets in 15 overs was a bit of a stretch,” Raj said.
Mithali termed this as best Test match performance by India considering this was their first Day/Night Test and certainly better than their away win against England in 2014.
“Against the best sides, definitely yes. (Against) Australia this is the best game we’ve played. But in 2014, with eight debutants winning a Test in England against England, who had just won the Ashes. That was also very close. That was pretty great. The girls really put up a great show,” she replied asked about her personal favourite.
