Senior pros need to step up if India wants to fight at World T20, feels Diana Edulji

After a dominant run in the league stage of the T20 tri-series, the Indian women fell miserably short in the final against Australia, losing 7 wickets in the span of 27 balls when all they needed was 47 runs off 35 balls. The collapse came on the back of a heroic win in a do-or-die encounter against the Aussies in the group stages, a match where they convincingly outclassed the world champions in all aspects of the game.

Thus, unsurprisingly, such a collapse drew criticism from many people and former women's skipper Diana Edulji, too, hopped in with some precious advice. She asked skipper Harmanpreet Kaur and senior opener Jemimah Rodrigues to step up and take the lead in crunch situations with the T20 World Cup approaching.

"Both Harmanpreet and Jemimah need to pull up their socks," Edulji was quoted as saying by ESPN Cricinfo. "Maybe Harman should give up captaincy and play her natural game. Something seems to be troubling her. But who else takes over then. If Smriti is handed captaincy, it might affect her batting too."

The former skipper pointed out that the laziness of the girls in the middle is costing them games. She asked the players to be proactive in the middle and turn the singles to doubles so as to build pressure on the opposition.

"They are so lazy that they never try for a second," Edulji said. "These are the things that make all the difference. It is a single or a boundary, there is nothing in between.

"There is something wrong with this team. This is a team which can win every game and it does win from an unlikely situation but the next game it is losing from a comfortable position like it did today. They are simply not consistent enough."