Wanted to see how youngsters react under pressure: Coach Ramesh Powar defends batting-order reshuffle

Ramesh Powar is hardly perturbed by the 13-run defeat against Pakistan in the Asia Cup as the team management's primary aim was to test the temperament of the younger lot in a pressure situation. Skipper Harmanpreet Kaur returned against Pakistan but only to bat at No. 7 as India's new-look middle order faltered in its chase of a modest 138 and suffered a 13-run loss against their arch-rivals here on Friday.

"It's not a setback... We were not thinking on those lines. We were facing an issue, which needed to be addressed," Powar said at the post-match media interaction.

After three wins in a row that gave them the pole position in the standings, India wanted to test their new look middle-order in a pressure match against Pakistan, the head coach revealed. "It was a thing that was planned earlier that after three games we wanted to try some young ones who can take up that role. We wanted to expose (Dayalan) Hemalatha, Pooja (Vastrakar), Richa (Ghosh) and Radha (Yadav) who are young.

The purpose was to send them up and make them feel the pressure." "They need to go through these pressure situations because Smriti (Mandhana), Jemimah (Rodrigues) and Harmanpreet have been doing it for a long time. We wanted to fill this gap before the World Cup. We wanted to do it in the Asia Cup as we do not have many games ahead of the World Cup -- just five games against Australia," the former India off-spinner said.

India will open their Women's T20 World Cup campaign against Pakistan at Cape Town on February 12. India find themselves in Group 2 with England, West Indies, Pakistan and Ireland. Group 1 has five-time winners and reigning champions Australia along with New Zealand, hosts South Africa, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.