Mithali Raj's Bombshell On Harmanpreet Kaur-Led India's Women's T20 World Cup 2024 Exit, Says 'No Growth...'

Former India captain Mithali Raj on Tuesday attributed the national team's underwhelming performance in the Women's T20 World Cup to lack of growth across departments over the past three years. It was the first time under Harmanpreet Kaur's long captaincy tenure that India failed to qualify for the knockouts of the ICC showpiece, extending the team's title-less run in world events and putting serious question marks over her future as skipper. Speaking to PTI from Dubai, Mithali said the team's downfall was a result of not getting used to the conditions in the UAE quick enough, lack of role clarity in the batting department, untested bench strength, and below-par fielding.

Excerpts from the interview: 

How would you assess India's performance in the tournament? 

If I talk about the Australia game, it was a match to win. I thought at some point we had a chance but it seemed like we are following the same template against Australia. Taking the match deep but falling short eventually. It's not working.

I feel that in the last two, three years, I've not really seen any growth in this team, in the sense like, I mean, beating the best side is what you always prepare for but it seems like we are saturated in the sense we are beating other teams and we are pretty happy in that. Every other team has shown growth despite limited depth, a case in point being South Africa. We have not.

Do you think the loss to New Zealand hurt the team more compared to the defeat against Australia?

Surprisingly, we took time to adjust to the slowness of the wicket. Unlike an ODI World Cup, it is a short tournament, you don't have a lot of time to adjust to the conditions. Someone like Sophie Devine was able to score that many runs against us and