Indian captain Harmanpreet Kaur also wanted to bat first. He said that the pitch may be a bit difficult, so the team will not enter with any particular score in mind. India’s focus will be on playing cricket according to its strengths. Harmanpreet said, “We don’t have any target score in our mind. We just want to play according to our strengths.India started the tournament with a comfortable win against Thailand. However, in that match the team lost wickets quickly during the middle overs. The Indian team has now come against Hong Kong with the intention of improving this weakness. The team will be expected to get a fast start from Smriti Mandhana and Shefali Verma, while the responsibility in the middle overs will be on Harmanpreet, Richa Ghosh and Deepti Sharma.
On the other hand, the Hong Kong team had lost to Thailand by just 6 runs in their previous match. Yasmin Daswani had scored the most runs for the team. Whereas, Marina Lamplow had performed brilliantly with both ball and bat. He also scored 22 runs in quick succession after taking 4 wickets.
Hong Kong captain Natasha Miles admitted that the match against India will not be easy. He said that a score of around 140 to 150 runs could prove to be a challenging target. Hong Kong has also made two changes in its team for this match.
This match is an important opportunity for both the teams to strengthen their position in the tournament and gain momentum for the upcoming matches.
Playing-11 of both the teams
Hong Kong: Natasha Miles (captain), Maryam Bibi, Mariko Hill, Joyleen Kaur, Marina Lamplow, Yasmin Daswani (wk), Shanjin Shahzad, Kari Chan, Ruchita Venkatesh, Iqra Sahar and Alison Siu.
India: Smriti Mandhana, Shefali Verma, Pratika Rawal, Harmanpreet Kaur (captain), Bharti Fulmali, Richa Ghosh (wicketkeeper), Deepti Sharma, Prema Rawat, Nandani Sharma, Shree Charani and Kranti Gaur.