
India head coach Ramesh Powar on Friday said the plan was to give an out-of-form Shafali Verma a break and bring in a consistent Yastika Bhatia during their match against New Zealand in the ICC Women's Cricket World Cup. He added that having three left-handed batters at top three is something which the think-tank will try to address in future.
In order to solve their top-order batting issue, India drafted Yastika in place of a struggling Shafali, who was out for a six-ball duck against Pakistan. It meant that India had an all-left top-order in Yastika, Smriti Mandhana and Deepti Sharma.
But that didn't help as Yastika, opening in ODIs for the first time, struggled to get going against a tight New Zealand bowling attack and was out for 28 in the 20th over. Smriti and Deepti, on the other hand, fell in the first 10 overs against New Zealand.