Lanning wary of Poonam threat; team unity helping India 

It was just exactly 15 days ago when India defeated hosts Australia in the ongoing T20 World Cup opener in Sydney on February 21. Come Sunday, on March 8, both the teams will meet once again in the competition but this time in the mega finale at the iconic Melbourne Cricket Stadium.

No doubt it's going to be huge moment for the players of both teams. For Australia, it is their sixth final in seven editions till now and the first time in front of home crowd while for India, it's their maiden appearance in the summit clash.

India’s 133-run target in front of a mighty Australian batting line-up looked too small to defend on that February 21evening. But the story didn’t end there as Poonam Yadav turned out to be the ‘chhota packet bada dhamaaka’ (big surprise in a small packet) in front of the 13,000-odd crowd. The pint-sized Poonam spun a web around the Australian batters emerging the best with the figures of 4-0-19-4 to restrict the hosts 17 runs short of the target.

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And after Australia’s semifinal victory against South Africa on Thursday (March 5), skipper Meg Lanning is pretty wary of the Poonam threat that will be on show on Sunday. “Yeah, we will talk about Poonam Yadav,” said Lanning on Thursday in Sydney.

“There are a lot of learnings from that first game that we feel like we can implement. Yeah, we’ll do all our research over the next few days; have a look at them, but also how we can play. I’ve got no doubt we’ll be able to adapt. As I said, it’s a different wicket. We’ll have to work out what that looks like. India are a very, very good side, and they’ve shown that throughout the tournament. So we’re going to have to play well.”

It is often said that the Australians aren’t good players of spin – they lost 14 of their 26 wickets to spin in this tournament – and it’s is going to be interesting how the hosts tackle India’s spin-heavy attack in the final. For the record, both the teams have faced each other four times in all T20 World Cups and if the current Indian spinners – Poonam, Radha Yadav, Deepti Sharma, Rajeshwari Gayakwad – are taken into account, they have scalped combined 11 Australian wickets so far.

Meanwhile, for Poonam, it is the unity in the team that has helped India jump from leap to leap successfully in the competition. “The unity in our team is very high. If one doesn’t perform, others step up,” the leggie said on Thursday. “We have shown that throughout the tournament and hope to carry forward in the final on March 8 at the MCG too .”

“I didn’t play the T20 tri-series and during that time I saw numerous videos of Australian players about how they play against spin and worked hard on that aspect. When I played the first match I was pretty nervous. After I got hit for the first six, Harry di (Harmanpreet Kaur) told me, ‘Poonam you are the most experienced bowler in the side and we don’t expect this from you’. I got a wicket in the very next ball and my confidence grew thereon as I went on to take three more in the match,” added the 28-year-old from Uttar Pradesh.