India vs Pakistan: Harmanpreet Kaur and Co. are in a tricky spot.© Twitter
The Indian cricket team goes into the Women's T20 World Cup match against Pakistan knowing a defeat will effectively knock them out of the competition. After losing to New Zealand in their first match of the T20 World Cup, the Harmanpreet Kaur-led side finds itself last among five team of the Group A. Only the top two teams will enter the semi-final from the group. Currently, New Zealand and Australia hold the top two places. So far, Australia, Pakistan and New Zealand have won one match each. Sri Lanka have lost both their matches.
India must beat Pakistan by a healthy margin to first rise to the third spot in the group. They would then aim to win their remaining matches and hope one among New Zealand and Australia lose at least a match. Then the equation will come down to Net Run-Rate. However, in case of a loss, the road ahead will be tricky.
Then they will not only have to win their next two matches against Sri Lanka and six-time champions Australia, but also hope other teams falter.
Ahead of their most anticipated match against Pakistan in the ongoing Women's T20 World Cup 2024, India bowling coach Aavishkar Salvi asked his side to "stay united, and believe in their abilities."
Speaking at the pre-match press conference, Salvi said that the match against their arch rivals Pakistan is a fresh opportunity for the Women in Blue. He added that the team management only asks the team to stay strong.
"The next game is a fresh opportunity for us. The girls have gone through the grind and have been through this (similar results) before. We only tell them to stay strong, stay united, and believe in our abilities and plans," Salvi said.
The bowling coach also praised India's fielding efforts against New Zealand and said that there has been a lot of improvement.
"We have been working on it. If you see the results, the errors are lesser than what it was earlier So there has been a lot of improvement in that aspect. If you see the way we fielded yesterday, barring a few moments and a couple of deliveries, the rest of the time the speed of the girls was superb, the angle cutting was nice and the way they were moving across the field, that was great," he added.