Surprised that all my bowlers had an off day: Mithali Raj

Livid with her bowlers after the humiliating firstround exit from the Women39s cricket World Cup India captain Mithali Raj said their collective failure in the mustwin group match against minnows Sri Lanka was a bolt from the blue for her India were crushed by 138 runs failing to chase the imposing 2825 set by Sri Lanka last night quotAll the bowlers were off colour today We can expect one or two bowlers of colour a day but not all of themI think honestly 280 is something I didn39t expect Sri Lanka to score against us the kind of bowling attack we hadquot Raj said after the drubbing quotAgainst England also we gave extra runs in the last session of our bowling department Even today after the power play overs in the last 10 overs we gave away too many runs It is obviously a concern areaquot she added India leaked more than 94 runs in the last 10 overs against Sri Lanka helping them to post 2825 quotThe Sri Lankan batsmen scored most of their runs at square of the wicket It shows as a bowler where you are bowlingquot she explained Asked if former captain and pace spearhead Jhulan Goswami let her down Raj said quotIt is not that one player will score each and every day Sometimes the others also have to support She has done well against West Indies she has done well against England It was her off dayquot Jhulan Goswami Pic Suresh KK quotI didn39t expect the rest of the bowlers to be off too It happens sometime that when you know one bowler is there in the side whom you have to watch and play And if that bowler may not get the line and length on that particular day that doesn39t mean she has let me downquotu00a0 quotShe definitely has won some amazing games for India so one bad match for her the position she is in I don39t think she let me downquot she said Goswami picked up three wickets against Sri Lanka but she wasn39t her economical best and conceded 63 runs The team had made one change by replacing pacer Niranjana Nagrajan with Shubh Lakshmi Sharma a move that did not work quotI think everybody knew that the wicket wouldn39t help the spinners What I expected today was that the pacers would do a decent job The way they started after the first wicket fell the partnership between one down batter and opener they played some good strokesquot Raj said quotNiranjana did get few wickets in the last two games but she was expensive as well and we thought we will get a new pacer and she will be raring to go in the form of Shubh Lakshmiquot she said Sharma went wicketless in her nine overs and conceded 52 runs Raj was also critical of the India39s batting effort quotWhen you chase a big total it is very important to have a good start We lost a quick wicket and as we tried to build a little bit of partnership between me and Thirushkamini it didn39t become big and after me when we lost Harmanpreet Kaur quotI think the top three batsmen in a span of below 50 runs that is where I thought the match was going to be tightquot she explained Asked if India underestimated Sri Lanka Raj said quotI don39t think it was complacency but I had lot of faith in my bowlers The kind of attack we had I definitely felt 280 was a little more todayIt is disappointing to be out of World Cup as a host teamquot India still have a match to play when they take on Pakistan for the seventh and eighth position play off tomorrow quotHonestly I don39t know It is the seventh and eighth position It is very disappointing I really can39t comment on that because I am still not in a position to think about thatquot she said quotAs a captain it is disappointing but as player I do realise there is always a fluctuation It happens in sports that sometimes you are in your best of form sometimes you really don39t take it off That is part of sportquot said the world number one batter who wasn39t in best of forms scoring 1 8 and 20 in three matches Meanwhile Sri Lanka captain Shashikala Siriwardene was on seventh heaven receiving congratulatory messages from well wishers including President Mahinda Rajapaksa quotI can39t believe it it39s dream come true for us We finished eighth in the last world cup I got a call from my home The people are excited over there This is the second match they have seen live Everything is changing for usquot she said On the President39s message she said quotHe said he has not seen a match like this for the first time He is very happy for us He just wanted to congratulate us We are happy for this victory and good luck for the restquot In their 18 meetings India have lost to Sri Lanka for the first time having won the previous 16 times with one being a no result The island nation has made it to the super six for the first time and Siriwardene said the team hopes to put up a good show quotThis is the first time we are coming to super six so we are hoping to do wellquot she said The 27year old said that this could well be her last World Cup appearance quotI am super happy This might be my last World Cup and I wanted to do something special for my team I am happyquot she said u00a0