Women's World Cup: India's Crucial Battle Against England — Character Test Begins

India's campaign in the ongoing World Cup is at a crucial juncture as they gear up for a must-win clash against England at the Holkar Stadium in Indore. Since 2020, India have failed to beat a SENA (South Africa, England, New Zealand, Australia) side at global tournaments across both formats.

With the possibility of missing out on the semifinals looming large, the Harmanpreet Kaur-led side can't afford to have a slip-up against Nat Sciver-Brunt & Co. Hussain also urged the Indian team to stay confident, reminding them of their ODI series win over England coming in July.

"I mean, mid-tournament, it's not ideal. As a host, you're going to have pressure all the way through. I think Harmanpreet, in her very first press conference, played it down and almost said, 'We don't feel the pressure, which is fine when you're winning."

"But when you start losing, then that pressure does mount because every game then suddenly becomes a must-win game. Unless you're Australia, you are - I mean, Australia and England are the unbeaten sides in this tournament. You are going to lose - part of tournament cricket is losing the odd game and losing back-to-back games."

"But it's how you recover from that, and it's important. So India have a lot of very good players on that side, and it's about character now. Two games, they could have easily won both those games. It's not like they're playing bad cricket and losing games. They just lost games to two or three brilliant bits of cricket from the opposition."

"So I think they need to keep their confidence up. Remember, they beat England in the summer, and just that realisation in a long tournament, this is over a month, you may have an average week, but you can recover from that," Hussain told IANS in the JioStar Press Room show on Friday.

With the pitch in Indore likely to produce a run-fest, Hussain has also called for a more aggressive batting approach from India and urged them to go harder early on with the bat, like how they posted 330 against Australia in Visakhapatnam, though it went in vain.

"I felt in the first couple of games, they were just trying to get a par score, pack their batting, and just try to get a par score, and weren't playing fearless cricket. I watched their game against Australia, and the way, Pratika, Smriti, and the top order went, because it was Australia, you realise you have to get a par score and a few more."

"You realise you're not going to plod to a score and beat Australia. When I watched India play Australia, actually, they put on a better performance. I know they lost the game, but they seem to put on a better performance and play fearless cricket because they know that's the only way to beat in Australia. You cannot just be meek and quiet and get 230, as Bangladesh found last night, they will just knock that off."

"So if India need to play England like they played against Australia, they need to go hard at them. If they're going to play the extra batter and have some of those like Sneh Rana and Amanjot Kaur coming in at eight and nine, then you can go hard all the way through, and you can get an above-par score. Then your spinners and seamers will have a role to play."

"So if there was one thing I would change, it is if you are going to play the extra batter, then go harder - use that extra batter and realise that there are two cricketers in this game that can get their side out of trouble down the order, and that is Deepti Sharma and Charlie Dean. In England, Charlie Dean does it. Real sort of crunch and clutch players. So go hard because you got batters down the order that can get you out of trouble," he concluded.

Catch India vs England in the ICC Women's Cricket World Cup India 2025 on October 19, at 3 pm, LIVE on JioHotstar and Star Sports Network

- IANS