No regrets, says Harmanpreet on Mithali Raj's omission

The decision to drop a player of Mithali Rajs calibre backfired during Indias humiliating semifinal loss to England in the World T20 but skipper Harmanpreet Kaur said that she has no regrets as it was decision taken keeping teams interests in mindIndian batting collapsed as they managed only 112 with eight wickets falling for 24 runs as the visibly upset veterans blank stare sitting in the dugout said it allAt the toss Harmanpreet saidIts not about not selecting Mithali its about keeping a winning combinationThe decision was questioned by former England captain Nasser Hussain and former Indian Test player Sanjay Manjrekar on airHowever the Indian skipper defended her decisionWhatever we decided we decided for the team Sometimes it works sometimes it doesnt no regrets Im proud of the way my girls played through the tournament Harmanpreet said at the postmatch presentation ceremonyMithalis strikerate was always an issue but considering that Taniya Bhatia hasnt been able to acclerate and Veda Krishnamurthy in poor form the decision to drop a seasoned campaigner boomeranged on IndiaThe skipper said that she wanted someone to bat in the middleorder as Mithalis preferred position is opening and she didnt want to tinker with the combination ghat won against AustraliaWe did really well against Australia and that is the reason we just wanted to go with the same combination she explained at the press conferenceShe Mithali opens We need someone after Smriti Mandhana and me who can bat for us Sometimes you click sometimes it doesnt clickHarmanpreet agreed that the team was at least 30 runs short of what could possibly have been a winning targetDefinitely it was not enough to tell you but still I had enough faith that if we could have bowled better we couldve won the game said KaurBut its part of the game sometimes I think if we had 140150 then definitely we would have won the gameThe Indian captain termed it as a learning curve for her young teamThis is a learning for us because we are a young team Sometimes you have to change your game according to the wicket England bowled really well read the wicket really well It was not an easy total to chase and our bowlers bowled really well We stretched the match till the 18th over Harmanpreet explainedShe did admit that mental strength in big games is an issue and her young team needs to garner a bit more of itI think we are a young team and we still need to work on our mental strength If we can work on how to play under pressure that will change how we play these gamesEngland captain Heather Knight said that she was worried during Powerplay overs when Smriti Mandhana had gone on the offensive but lauded her spinner Kirstie Gordon and Sophie Ecclestone for bringing them back in the gameThe match got away from us a bit in the Powerplay but the spinners bowled really well to bring us back Kirstie has been outstanding on her first tour Sophie young spinner as well has shown a lot of quality over the last year or soKnight said that she wasnt concerned about the form of her top players like Tammy Beaumont and Dani Wyatt because conditions for batting was challenging in St LuciaI think the conditions have been very tricky in St Lucia and when weve come here No worries at all about the form of Beaumont and Wyatt The final against Australia is going to be a great game hopefully well have a great atmosphere and a brilliant game of cricketCatch up on all the latest sports news and updates here Also download the new midday Android and iOS apps to get latest updatesThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Except for the change in headline the story has been provided ASIS AS AVAILABLE without any verification or editing from our side Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever