Mithali seeks tips from Tendulkar
Star Indian batswoman Mithali Raj is seeking tips from Sachin Tendulkar and Mahendra Singh Dhoni to prepare better for next year's Women's World Cup in Australia.
The former skipper of the Indian women's cricket team said that since they hardly have opportunities to play international matches before the quadrennial event in March, suggestions from the star duo of the men's team would help them prepare well.
"The level at which they play, their opinion would be significant for us. If I get a chance I would love to take some tips from Sachin about my batting," Mithali, who turns 26 on Wednesday, told PTI-Bhasha.
The former skipper is also an admirer of men's team captain Dhoni and said she would love to learn some tricks of the trade from the Khel Ratna awardee.
"I want to take some tips from Dhoni on leading the side in big tournaments. Advice of all the senior players of the men's cricket team would be helpful for us because they belong to a different league altogether," she said.
The Indian women's team is relying on domestic cricket matches and training camps in the next three months to prepare for the World Cup as no international matches are scheduled in this period.
However, Mithali is not worried as she believes the recently concluded one-day series in Australia has given them a chance to get familiarised with conditions Down Under.
"Though we lost that series we got a taste of the local conditions there. Some of the World Cup matches will be played at one of those venues, so that will help," Mithali said. A veteran of 108 ODIs, Mithali said the onus would be on the top-order to put pressure on the opponents.
"The batting order has to fire if we have to perform well. The openers would have to give a good start so that the middle-order do not get under pressure. It would be too much to ask the lower order to bail out the team from crisis situation.
"As far as bowling is concerned, Jhulan Goswami needs a good strike partner at the other end. We failed in getting early wickets and that was the reason behind our recent defeat. We will be doing something about it keeping the World Cup in mind," the former skipper said.
Mithali, who has a double hundred to her credit in Test cricket, rued that fact that she did not get much opportunity to play the longer version of the game.
"We play too many ODIs, sometimes we even forget when we last played a Test," Mithali, who has played just eight Test matches since 2002, said adding, "this is because perhaps there are no spectators for women's cricket".