India vs England One-off Test: Deepti Sharma relishes the time on her side on her way to a stunning five-for | Cricket News
India all-rounder Deepti Sharma is a meticulous planner. She loves to ponder extensively, strategise and then try to execute her plan. It’s no wonder then that she loves playing Test cricket. On Day 2 of India’s one-off Test against England at the DY Patil Stadium in Navi Mumbai on Friday, she showed just how effective her planning can be, claiming her first Test five-for while only conceding seven runs.
On a day when very early on it was clear that the pitch would ass spinners, Deepti wasn’t handed the ball straight away. Skipper Harmanpreet Kaur chose to make Deepti wait and it was only a couple of overs before drinks — India’s 26th over to be precise — that she gave the 26-year-old the ball.
Deepti had no qualms about being made to wait. For someone used to the demands of the fast-paced nature of white-ball cricket, she likes to savour the scattered Test opportunities that women cricketers get.
5⃣-🌟 Bowling Performance, ft. @Deepti_Sharma06!
Relive her brilliant five-wicket haul 🎥 🔽 #TeamIndia | #INDvENG | @IDFCFIRSTBank
— BCCI Women (@BCCIWomen) December 15, 2023
Being made to wait also allowed her to plan “When I was fielding at slips, I was just watching what the bowlers were doing and wondering what I could add on to get wickets. I was waiting to come into the attack. The wicket was helping the spinners and we thought about maximising it. We wanted to bowl in the right areas,” Deepti said after the day’s play.
The spell was nothing short of stunning. She needed less than 6 overs to get the England innings undone. She wiped out the middle-lower order as England, from a comfortable 108/3, crumbled to lose the next seven wickets for 28 runs, being bowled out for 136.
The fact that Deepti raced to a five-wicket-haul in just 33 balls is a remarkable feat. In fact, completing a five-wicket haul in just 5.3 overs marks the shortest such spell in women’s Test cricket hory.
In terms of records, Deepti, who scored a patient 113-ball 67 in India’s first-innings total of 428, became only the second Indian to score a fifty and claim a fifer in the same match in women’s Tests.
“Personally, I love Test cricket. I just wanted to contribute, be it with the bat or the ball. I love to play Tests because you can take your time. More importantly, you have a lot of time to stage a comeback if you lose your way slightly.”
Not to say that India lost their way when England’s Nat Sciver-Brunt and Tammy Beaumont were looking steady in the middle, but they will be thankful that they managed to stage a comeback.
“We handled the pressure well initially when Nat and Tammy got a good partnership. We held our nerves well (in that phase) and just wanted to take it over over,” Deepti said.
Deepti claimed her first wicket with just her second ball, getting rid of the dangerous Danny Wyatt (19), who began with a string of fours. Wyatt was caught at short leg for a bat-pad dismissal, and it was the wicket that sparked a shocking England collapse.
Among the five wickets she got on the day, it’s the dismissal of Sophie Ecclestone that she enjoyed the most, she says. “The ball got a sharp turn, and I enjoyed that.”
India deciding not to enforce a follow-on means that their bowlers get additional time to rest. Deepti seemed quite content with that. After all, it gives her more time to strategise.
