CWG experience helped me mature quickly: Yastika Bhatia on her T20I comeback
Yastika Bhatia was the last wicket to fall as the Women in Blue succumbed to a heartbreaking loss against Australia in the Commonwealth Games final earlier this year. She was then dropped from the T20I squad that traveled for the Women's Asia Cup.
However, strong performances in domestic cricket and in the Women's T20 Challenger Trophy have helped her get back into the Indian squad for the five T20Is at home against Australia, starting next week.
Speaking exclusively to Sportskeeda, Yastika Bhatia explained what all she has learned during her time away from the team. She said:
"There's a lot of difference between the Yastika that played in the Commonwealth Games and the Yastika now, but playing in that tournament gave me some much-needed experience and has helped me mature more quickly. I have learned that when there is less time to prepare, that's when you put in double the effort and get better."
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Yastika Bhatia on working on her weaknesses
Yastika Bhatia also revealed that some changes were needed to her game as well as her mindset if she wanted to become a regular for India in T20Is. She pointed out that the rotation of strike has been one of her weaker areas in the past but she has now worked hard on it to ensure she doesn't put pressure on the non-striker.
With the U19 World Cup's dates clashing with India's Tri-Series, Yastika Bhatia would probably get a lot more game time with both Shafali Verma & Richa Ghosh at the U19 World Cup.
Probably more game time for Harleen Deol too.
On this, Yastika Bhatia stated:
"After getting dropped from the team, I took some time to reflect on the areas I need to focus on to ensure that I change my game according to the needs of modern-day T20 cricket. It is quite a T20 season with the domestic T20 tournament and the Challenger Trophy followed by the T20s against Australia and the T20 World Cup. I particularly worked on strike rotation as it is crucial even in T20s, keeping the scoreboard ticking."
It will be interesting to see what role the Women in Blue are looking at for Yastika, as there seem to be too many top-order options already going forward.