Women's World Cup: It will be exceptional to beat Australia: Mithali Raj

Derby, July 19: Indian skipper Mithali Raj said it would be an "exceptional" effort to beat Australia in the semifinal of the ICC Women's World Cup on Thursday. The winner will play England for the title.

"We've played a lot of the group stage here, four games, so we are aware of the conditions and that is our advantage. Australia is a very good side. They won the last edition of this tournament and they have a lot of players who have played in high-pressure games," she said.

Mithali has been in fine form with the bat, scoring 356 runs in seven innings and becoming the first woman to surpass 6,000 runs in one-day cricket.

"It's all about how the teams respond to the situation and the conditions on the day," she said. "How the players play the situation is important because having said that Derby is our home ground, you need to perform on that day to win. But for this Indian team, it is going to be a big game and if we can pull out one win, it will be exceptional," she said.

Australia's Nicole Bolton, who has scored 337 runs at 56.16 in the tournament thus far, was confident her team can adapt quickly to conditions. "We'll make sure we're really clear what our plans are. On any given day, it's irrelevant where we play, if we play our best cricket hopefully we'll win the match," she said.

OneIndia News