India women's cricket coach Tushar Arothe hints on positive mindset ahead of SA tour

Mumbai: Indian women’s cricket team coach Tushar Arothe on Tuesday said that the team is travelling to South Africa with a positive frame of mind, despite having lost to the Proteas in the ICC Women’s World Cup last year.

Tushar Arothe also stressed on the fact that the women’s team were not playing multi-day cricket tournaments like that of the men’s team, and said that they were focused on the upcoming ODIs versus the South Africa in the rainbow nation.

“We’re not playing multi-day cricket there. Our focus is on one-dayers. Last year when we went there we came out as champion and on the other hand in the World Cup we lost to SA which we have to keep in mind. We are going with positive frame of mind to do well,” he said during the pre-departure press conference.

He also focused on the importance of training that a cricket team needs to have.

“Training is very important. What we found in the World Cup was our fitness levels. We had a few fitness camps in the month of September in MCA which helped the girls fitness standard.

“In the challengers you must’ve seen the fielding levels had gone up and during this camp we made some wickets a little bouncier. We gave them some target in the training setting targets for 10 overs and the bowlers are also going under different regimes,” he continued.

The Indian men’s team had a forgettable outing so far, losing the Test series to South Africa after consecutive losses. The women’s cricket team coach, too, stressed on the fact that the team needs to acclimatise to the conditions.

“We are preparing ourselves for the tour. Like Mithali said, we need to acclimatise to mthe conditions, and playing couple of practice games before the first one-dayer. Even during the World Cup last year, we went early to England. That helped us a lot,” he concluded.