“As team management we felt Jemi is ready for this because she’s been playing in England for a while in the Hundred or T20s. So we thought we will take a chance on her and promote her.”
“It’s an evolving process and we learn every day,” said Powar. “We don’t get carried away with performances or failures. We try and give them space and if someone is clicking we try and continue with that player.”
Powar said that Taniya’s inclusion was to have their best wicketkeeper play in crunch situations, where the conditions can be tricky.
“When you come to a marquee tournament, you are ready with the players and all 15 are available. It is not a bilateral series where you give a chance to a player to see how she goes about the game,” Powar said. “We want to use whatever we have in our arsenal. We felt Taniya could be a game-changer as far as wicketkeeping is concerned because we have quality bowlers. Taniya has been very good with her keeping in the last so many years and that makes a difference.”
“It does give us goosebumps,” Powar said about the idea of India winning a medal in cricket. “We were watching long jump of one of our athletes who got us silver. That gave us an impression that the boy was trying very hard.
“Our job is to go out there and try as hard as he did. We watched him achieve the silver medal live and will put our best performance forward to win a medal.” A win for India in the semi-final against England will assure them of a medal, while a loss would leave them vying for bronze.