After India defeated Pakistan by 107 runs to begin their campaign in the ICC Women’s World Cup on a high note, skipper Mithali Raj expressed concerns about the side’s batting, especially the top-order.

“I am happy we won the first game but a lot of things to work on. When you lose wickets in the middle order, it does put a lot of pressure. The top-order has to score runs in a big tournament like this,” the skipper said at the post-match presentation ceremony on Sunday. 

“When you have all-rounders like Sneh (Rana), Deepti (Sharma) and Pooja (Vastrakar), we extend our batting line up. Hope Pooja would be fine before the next game.”

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India opted to bat first but soon found themselves under pressure after opener Shafali Verma was dismissed for a duck in the third over. A 92-run partnership between Smriti Mandhana (52 off 75 balls) and Deepti Sharma (40 off 57) helped India recover. However, Pakistan came back strongly by dismissing skipper Mithali Raj (9) and her deputy Haramanpreet Kaur (5). Pooja Vastrakar (67) and Sneh Rana (53) then put on a 122-run stand to help boost the India total.

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Left-arm spinner Rajeshwari Gayakwad did the star turn with the ball with excellent figures of 4/31. Pacer Jhulan Goswami bowled finished the game with impressive figures of 2/29.

Pakistan skipper Bismah Maroof admitted that her team failed to capitalise on the momentum after they had India in deep trouble initially.

“We bowled well in the middle. We were in the game. We bowled some loose balls and Sneh as well as Pooja played well. Credit to them. We bowled some bad balls and gave away easy runs. We were sloppy on the field as well.

“I think we were doing well and leaked some runs. Didn’t capitalize on the momentum. We need to focus more on batting as we didn’t play some good shots today,” Maroof said.