Find out how India women’s bowling coach Avishkar Salvi strategically manages players’ workloads and addresses batting challenges, ensuring optimum team performance in the Women’s T20 Asia Cup.
IMAGE: In India’s Asia Cup opener against Thailand, pace bowler Renuka Singh Thakur was rested to manage her workload. Photo: BCCI Women/X
Key points
- The India women’s team is implementing detailed plans to manage the workload of all its bowlers, not just key players like Renuka Singh Thakur.
- Coach Avishkar Salvi emphasized on the phases of construction, maintenance and rest for the bowlers to ensure peak performance.
- Salvi downplayed the recent batting collapse against Thailand, attributing it to the nature of T20 cricket.
- The coach highlighted the crucial comebacks and lower-order contributions that helped India reach a competitive total despite the collapse.
- The team’s strategy focuses on continuous development of players and adaptation to game situations in T20 tournaments.
Workload management plans are in place for every player in the team and they are being implemented really well, India women’s bowling coach Avishkar Salve said on Wednesday.
India did not include key spinner Renuka Singh Thakur for the Women’s Asia Cup T20 match against Thailand, which they won by 94 runs, with Deepti Sharma (0/3) producing an impressive spell.
Strategic workload management for bowlers
“It’s not just about Renuka in particular, it’s about all the bowlers. We are managing their workloads really well,” Salvi told the media on the eve of their clash against Hong Kong in Dubai.
“If you see the kind of tournaments they’ve been in, I mean they’ve been playing consistently. They’re in the major tournaments. Then there are the marquee tournaments and there are the camps in between.”
“Every bowler has to go through their own building phase, then a maintenance phase. There will (also) be a phase where they take a break, focusing on their training aspect. For all the bowlers, there is a specific plan through which they get those overs under their belts so that they are at their best during the tournament,” said Salvi.
• Women’s Asia Cup: India looks to fix batting woes against Hong Kong
Analysis of India’s batting performance
Salvi did not read much into India’s batting collapse against Thailand, when they lost seven wickets for 29 runs, falling from 108/2 to 137/9.
“We are playing T20, so it’s not that every time we execute our plans. There will be times when we maybe won’t execute the plans as brilliantly as we wanted and so there will be a collapse.”
While a quick fifty from Shafali Verma (64) gave India early momentum, a vital unbeaten 15 from Kranti Goud pushed them to 159/9.
“But if you see, there was a comeback as well. They came back really well (and) extended the partnership in the end. These important runs from the lower-order batsmen contributed, which probably created a mark of 160 and then after that, you saw how they bowled the match.”
