India women's team cricketer Sneh Rana's all-round display in the drawn one-off Test against England has earned her praise from skipper Mithali Raj, who felt that "a good couple of domestic seasons" had given her a lot of confidence.
Sneh became the first Indian woman cricketer to take four wickets and score a half-century (unbeaten 80 in the second innings) in Test cricket.
"Sneh Rana is sure coming back after five years but that girl has clearly had good couple of domestic seasons. I'm sure she walked in with loads of confidence. She played very, very sensibly, along with Taniya Bhatia (44 not out) and Shikha Pandey (18). That partnership was very, very crucial for us, after losing Harman (Kaur) and Punam Raut at that stage," Mithali was quoted as saying by cricinfo.com.
Mithali said that Sneh's contributions in the lower order, including her 41-run partnership with Shikha, which lasted almost 16 overs, played a big role in taking India to the safety of the draw.
"I'm mightily impressed with all the debutants because right from Shafali to Deepti, Sneh, Pooja Vastrakar and Taniya Bhatia, they've all really done well. See, we need to understand that they don't have the experience and you can't really bombard them with too many inputs about how to play in these situations and all you can do is give them a lot of confidence that they need to believe in their ability," opined Mithali.
Mithali added that the draw had given the team a huge psychological boost.
"Psychologically, I think, it's a big boost (managing a draw). It definitely will put England on the back foot," she added.
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