Last Updated on 5 years by Charbel Coorey

Mithali Raj went on record to share player’s anxiety and lack of clarity that has surrounded the Indian Women’s team due to Covid-19 outbreak. After BCCI pulled out from the England tour in September due to the pandemic, Raj says that there’s been this anxiety about what the future looks like.

Specifically, Mithali Raj said that currently, the team doesn’t know what they’re training for.

“There needs to be a purpose. Before, we used to plan for any international series if it is an away-going tour, so players would accordingly prepare. And if it’s a home series we prepared accordingly, but now we don’t know why we train. So, sometimes we do feel there’s no sense of purpose if we don’t have competitive cricket or any international series, even domestic for that matter”, she said to ICC 100% Cricket virtual discussion.

Raj’s has played her last international match was in November against West Indies and she was about to join the inter-state senior women’s one day league for her domestic side Railways in late March. But, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, every plan was cancelled.

Former India T20I captain Mithali Raj announced her retirement from T20 in September last year. She last played a T20 international against England in Guwahati in March 2019. The veteran batsman will continue to be India’s ODI captain.

“As far as the mental setup is concerned, we did have a few sessions with a sports psychologist: talking to the players, as a team [too], we were on calls. Those things do help [because] as seasoned, as senior players we understand how to tune ourselves. But the most important thing in the current situation is the young players or the players who are in the age-groups, who’ve just made their debut. For them it’s even more important to settle their anxieties and anxiousness they develop thinking about their future”, she said.

Written by Anjali Jha. Follow Anjali on Twitter today.