Punam Raut and Jhulan Goswami back in the Indian squad for quadrangular series in South Africa

India has recalled Railways opener Punam Raut in the ODI side for the quadrangular series in South Africa which will also feature Ireland and Zimbabwe. The series gets underway on May 7. Pacer Jhulan Goswami is also set to make a comeback after she missed the 2017 ICC Women’s World Cup Qualifier in Sri Lanka due to a shoulder injury.

Newly appointed coach of the India Women’s team Tushar Arothe spoke ahead of the South African tour and said that the Indian Women’s team is looking to do well in the World Cup in the longer run but for now are also keen on winning the quadrangular series in South Africa to set the momentum up.

“We all know that India are eyeing the World Cup but at the same time I don’t want to miss out on this South Africa tour. We taking it one series at a time. At the moment, we are preparing ourselves for this South Africa tour and want to get the momentum going. We’ll hopefully take it ahead, for the World Cup,” Arothe was quoted by Cricbuzz as saying.

“I know it is seen as a preparatory tour for World Cup but we are not looking too far ahead. We’ll work hard for this series win and let’s see how it goes from there,” he said.

The coach also rightly pointed out the importance of fielding for winning games and said that the team will be focusing on the fitness first. Tushar also mentioned that strength is the major point of concern in the Indian team and they are improving on the same.

“To be able to face world-class teams like New Zealand and Australia, our fitness level has to match. So, my first aim is to improve the fitness level of the side as well as the fielding which matters a lot at the international level. We are working on the same, its a work in progress.”

“I would like to mention here that we are very good in the fielding department, but we are lacking in terms of strength. That’s something we have addressed and is also slowly improving”

The 50-year-old had his take on the powerplays and the death overs and said that it is important to score as many runs as possible in the powerplays. According to the new man at the helm, the team needs to give away the least amount of runs in the death overs.

“The reason why the stronger teams are putting up such challenging totals is because they have enough depth in their batting. They are scoring maximum runs in the mandatory powerplay and then again in death overs. When I worked with the Indian team previously, we were posting 60-odd runs and we need to get back to scoring that freely. And then, while bowling, we don’t have to leak too many runs in death overs,” he concluded saying.

India’s 15-member squad for quadrangular series:

Mithali Raj (c), Ekta Bisht, Rajeshwari Gayakwad, Jhulan Goswami, Mansi Joshi, Harmanpreet Kaur, Veda Krishnamurthy, Mona Meshram, Shikha Pandey, Poonam Yadav, Nuzhat Parween, Poonam Raut, Deepti Sharma, Devika Vaidya, Sushma Verma (wk)