Australia’s target of 180 will be challenging: Richa

Cape Town (Uttam Hindu News): India’s explosive wicket-keeper batsman Richa Ghosh on Wednesday said that the target of 180 runs will prove challenging for the Kangaroos ahead of the semi-finals of the Women’s T20 World Cup 2023 against Australia.

Richa told reporters here on the eve of the match, “Australia like to chase because they have depth in their batting. We have depth in our batting as well but the toss is not in anyone’s hands, so whatever the situation is, we will face it.”

“We don’t know how the pitch will be tomorrow. It is looking good at the moment and if we bat first, we will try to score 180 runs. If we bowl first, we will try to restrict them till 140-150, because their batting is very good.

Richa has proved to be vital for India in recent times due to her explosive batting. He played a match-winning inning of 31 runs off 20 balls in the first World Cup match against Pakistan. Apart from this, he also scored an unbeaten 47 off 34 balls against England, although India lost that match by 11 runs.

Talking about her batting, Richa said, “Ups and downs are there for everyone to see. I also had to watch but I learned a lot from him. I can handle the pressure better while going in to bat.”

India have suffered crushing defeats from Australia several times over the years, though Richa feels Meg Lanning’s team is not unbeatable. Significantly, the only defeat Australia have seen in T20 Internationals in the last 22 months was at the hands of India in December 2022.

Referring to that match, Richa said, “Australia is beatable. We beat them one game in the last series and we’ve done it before. They are a strong team but we can beat them. We are trying to improve our mindset. Sport is good for everyone but the team that is mentally better will win.”

In the home series in December, India won one match, but lost 1–4 at the end of the series. Richa said that series exposed India to Australia’s weaknesses and Harmanpreet’s team would like to exploit this knowledge.

Richa said, “We know Australia’s weaknesses and we are planning against it. I will not say what that (weakness) is because then they will come prepared.”