Women have started to play more positive cricket: Powar

India posted scores of 150-plus when batting first, and chased down targets of 132 and 135 with five wickets and seven wickets in hand. And this despite its star batters Smriti Mandhana, Mithali Raj and, until the last game, captain Harmanpreet Kaur not making contributions of note. “They have started to think more about positive cricket rather than just competing, about dominance rather,” said Powar.

“The message was loud and clear: it was always about getting runs at a brisk pace from every batswoman. No one can have that allowance to get settled for one or two overs. You have to go after the bowling.” For the Women’s World T20 in the Caribbean, which starts on 9 November, India is in the same group as New Zealand and Australia – two teams with a reputation for going big with fearless cricket right from ball one. Powar, who was on his first international assignment with the team, was happy to see India develop a similar approach.

He urged the team to keep at it irrespective of how the pitch plays or if it was coming back from losing a game. “I was little disappointed with the second and third ODI (Sri Lanka won the third as India won the series 2-1. The approach was not there,” he said. “It doesn’t look nice from outside. It’s not about winning or losing all the time, it’s about the brand of cricket that India women play.” 

“I’m happy if they get out in 15th or 16th over. I was not complaining when they got out [in 17.4 overs in the fifth T20I]. We can’t be thinking, ‘We have to look good, so we should bat for 20 overs’ ... That doesn’t make sense if you bat dot balls.”