Australia women’s team skipper Meg Lanning wary of India, Harmanpreet Kaur confident

After whitewashing India in the recent, three-match ODI series, Australia start favourites going into the women’s T20 tri-series also featuring England. However, Australian skipper Meg Lanning has warned her side against complacency, saying there is not much to choose among the three sides in the shortest version of the game.

“Both India and England are very good in T20. We know we have to play really well to beat them. There is no scope for complacency,” she said ahead of the opener against India on Thursday.

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The 25-year-old was wary of the hosts’ ability to make a comeback. “There were moments when India put us under the pump in the ODI series. So, we know they will come back hard at us. It’s going to be a very even series with all three teams starting on equal footing.”

Lanning though said success in ODIs has given Australia’s ‘Southern Stars’ lot of confidence. “We have got some confidence in our group from the way we played in the ODIs. The way players have adapted to conditions here is appreciable. We have to keep up the momentum.”

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KAUR BULLISH OF INDIA’S CHANCES

India T20 skipper Harmanpreet Kaur felt there is no clear favourite going into the series and that India can turn their fortunes around in T20.

“We are confident of our team’s chances. England and Australia have lot of experience because they have played plenty of T20 matches. Our team is young and some of us don’t have as much experience as foreign players have, but our players are learning quickly and we can surprise them in the tournament,” she said.

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India were outplayed in the ODI series and Harmanpreet believes the team needs to work on fielding, which cost them dear on many occasions.

“We need to improve in many areas but our biggest concern is fielding. If you look at the ODI series, we leaked many runs because of our poor fielding.”

Harmanpreet said for inspiration, India need not look beyond the team’s stellar performances in South Africa, where they won a five-match T20 series 3-1 in February.

“When we played T20 in South Africa, everybody enjoyed it because we were playing the format after 14-16 months. We need to take inspiration from our performance in South Africa. We didn’t do well in ODIs, but players are confident of doing well in T20s,” she said.