Jhulan Goswami calls for patience with her fellow pace bowlers

Jhulan Goswami, veteran India seamer, has asked people to be patient with the seam-bowling attack of India. In the 15 overs combined that Shikha Pandey, Pooja Vastrakar and Goswami bowled in the first ODI against England, only the 38-year-old returned with a wicket as India went down by eight wickets on Sunday (June 27).



“Shikha is making a comeback after missing our last series. Pooja is playing ODIs after a long time. They need a bit of time,” said Goswami on Tuesday (June 29), ahead of the second ODI.



“They’ve proved they’re quality bowlers and have won games single-handedly in the past. We just need to give them some time to come good.”



Batting first, India could only post 201 for eight in their 50 overs, conjuring up 181 dot balls in the process. Punam Raut, who scored 32, was under the scanner for her strike rate in the 50s while Harmanpreet Kaur scored only one, before being nicked off by Sophie Ecclestone. Only captain Mithali Raj &ab_channel=Women%27sCricZoneWomen%27sCricZone">returned with a half century – her 63^rd in the format – finishing with 72 off 108 after starting slowly.



While Raj had said that the batters need to help India post a score in excess of 250, Goswami backed the middle order to come good and said that they’re a knock away from helping the team to a win.



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“Punam has a lot of experience, Mithali, too, has a lot of experience. Harman is our vice-captain and T20I captain. They need one good knock among them for us to be in a better position. This is sport; every day is a (new) learning and hopefully one good match from them should be good.”



Goswami, who is the leading wicket-taker in ODIs, also said that the bowling unit as a whole will learn from the first game and come back stronger.



“At this moment we have to come back strongly as a bowling group. Whatever score will be there on the board, we have to come back and defend it as a group. The format is such that there are a lot of restrictions for the bowlers and not many for the batters.”



“We discuss about the areas and lengths to bowl, keeping in mind the weather. Nowadays the pitches all over the world are flat. There’s hardly anything in (them) for the bowlers. You just need to consistently bowl in the good length areas,” she concluded.