With the Indian women's team lacking enough red-ball exposure, vice-captain Smriti Mandhana said her young teammates are picking the brains of new head coach Amol Muzumdar to get into red-ball mindset ahead of the one-off Test against England.
Two years ago, India had played a couple of Tests in England and Australia in June and September with both the four-day games ending in draws. In comparison, England have had a more recent experience of playing red-ball cricket as their last game was against Australia in the Women's Ashes in June this year.
Mandhana, who herself has played just four Tests in a decade-long career, feels the presence of Muzumdar, a former domestic player and captain, will be crucial as they prepare for the four-day game starting here on Thursday.
"We have an experienced coach in Amol sir. He has played so much of Ranji Trophy cricket and is used to playing a lot of four-day (cricket)," Mandhana told the media in Navi Mumbai ahead of India's training session.
"More than two or three of us, he has more experience of red-ball cricket. I can see a lot of girls approaching him and asking how his mindset was," she added.
Even though the Indians were away from top-flight red-ball cricket for the past 24 months, they have been training with the red ball under Muzumdar, who was appointed as head coach in October this year.
The team had a training camp in Bengaluru and also took part in an intra-squad match for four days.
"We did have one practice match, all the girls were a part of it. I was not able to play because of a little bit of physical issue but we had a good match in Bangalore for four days, India A versus India A, that was a good prep to get the girls into the habit of playing red-ball cricket," Mandhana said.
"In Bangalore, before the girls left for the zonal (competition), we focussed on both white ball and red ball. Even the players who were not a part of the T20I squad were practicing on their own. Today and tomorrow (Wednesday) are going to be important."
Both India and England have got only a three-day gap to prepare for the one-off Test to be played at the DY Patil Stadium.
"It starts from today — the mental and physical preparation — and hopefully we can execute what we have thought about the way the Test formats needs us to," Mandhana said.
India will also play a Test against Australia at the Wankhede stadium from December 21.
"It requires both the aspects - the mental and the physical - because the bodies are not used to playing four days of cricket. We generally play T20s and ODIs a lot more which has gaps.
"More than the physical part, (it) being four days, (we have to be) mentally there, more active, trying to focus on each and every ball, especially the way you bat will change a lot."
More Tests will put focus on four-day cricket in domestic cricket
Mandhana hoped there would be more long format games at the international level which would force the national bodies to focus on four-day matches in domestic cricket.
"To be fair, we play a lot of T20Is and one-dayers in the last 4-5 years. The domestic structure is formed in terms of getting us the T20 and one-day experience because we had more World Cups," she said.
"The structure was designed according to that. We did not play as many, of course, I have played only four in 10 years.
"The more amount of Test matches increase internationally, we will see maybe a new tournament in domestic which will be focussed on two-day or four-day, whatever the long form they decide on.
"It is always the international demands, whatever they are, the domestic are designed according to the way the demand is going to be,” she added.
