Harmanpreet Kaur possibly faces the most crucial phase of her captaincy career when India Women face New Zealand in the World Cup in Navi Mumbai on Thursday.

The pressure and the criticism have been mounting on the hosts, following three
successive losses from winning positions.

Head coach Amol Muzumdar threw his weight behind the under-fire batters, whose patchy run has left the side struggling.

“We are well aware that a three-figure mark hasn’t come in this World Cup,” Muzumdar said. “But if you look at the past year-and-a-half, the 18 months that have passed before the World Cup, we’ve definitely had a lot of hundreds that we’ve seen than ever before, I guess. Yes, the three-figure mark has not been reached.”

However, Muzumdar dismissed the notion of the Indian batters being under pressure because of a lack of individual big scores.

“I don’t think there is a lot of load on anyone. We’ve had honest discussions about it and the players also have been honest that instead of a 50, we could have converted that into a 100. I’m hopeful that it will come in the next couple of games,” he said.