India’s spinner Sneh Rana opened up about the prospects of the women’s team winning an ICC trophy in the upcoming mega events. She mentioned that even the Indian men’s team had to wait for 10-long years to clinch an ICC trophy again and the women’s team would look to take inspiration from it. The Indian team won the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2024 after beating South Africa in the final on June 29 in Barbados. This would pave the way and work as a source of motivation for the women’s team as well to get their hands on a maiden ICC title.
India will yet again be favourites to defend the Women’s Asia Cup title as they begin their campaign against Pakistan on July 19 in Sri Lanka. The true test for the Harmanpreet Kaur-led side will be the upcoming T20 World Cup in October and the ODI World Cup, which will be played in India next year. The Indian women’s team have come close twice in ODI World Cups, when they lost the final against Australia and England in 2005 and 2017 respectively. They also lost in the final of the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup in 2020 against Australia.
Will women’s team lift an ICC title?
The spin-bowling all-rounder acknowledged that it will take a lot of hard work and sacrifices to win an ICC title. However, she was confident that the team would climb the summit for sure.
“The Indian women’s cricket team, if you look at the past 2-3 years, they are doing their best,” Rana told PTI.
“For (winning) the ICC trophy, let’s take the men’s (team’s example), it took almost 10 years to get the trophy. They have been preparing and working hard for it for a long time.
“To achieve something big, it will not happen overnight. It will take time. It will take a lot of sacrifices, a lot of struggle, a lot of things in between. But eventually, we will get there,” Rana said.
Fielding has been an area of concern which has been acknowledged by the players and coaches, but Rana says there is no lack of intent in order to get better.
Indian women’s team seek more experience
“When we play N number of matches, the chances of errors are more. But it doesn’t mean that someone is bad at it. Obviously, as a player, when you are on the field, you want to always do your best for your country,” she said.
“No one is there to say that it’s okay, it will happen (ho jayega). (But) it could also be a matter of a bad day for someone.”
“As far as ICC trophies are concerned, for big events, the more matches we play, the more experience we will get,” Rana said.