ACC Women’s Emerging Teams Cup: Hong Kong must bat differently against Pakistan, new coach Andy Cottam says
- Cottam calls for improvements after heavy defeat by India, as his side use Pakistan clash to prepare for a more winnable match against Nepal
- Hong Kong’s players also need more competition for their places in the team, he says
New Hong Kong head coach Andy Cottam is under no illusions as to the realities of his team’s goals this week in the ACC Women’s Emerging Teams Cup.
A hefty nine-wicket loss to India A on Tuesday is likely to be followed by another defeat at the hands of Pakistan A on Thursday, before a must-win game against Nepal, which has ICC ranking implications, two days later.
Cottam’s honest assessment was that while his side “haven’t come here to win the cup”, the weekend’s clash with their associate rivals was the main focus for the week.
“We’ve got another game [against Pakistan] to play around and hopefully get a result, but it’s not the end of the world [if we don’t],” he said. “But we really haven’t got any excuses for the third game.”
Nepal are presently ranked 20th, two places above where Hong Kong sit in the T20 list.
The Englishman had “exactly one net session” with his new team before they took on India, and said the game had opened up “some areas that I probably haven’t thought of”.
Unsurprisingly, given the struggles the batters had against India’s attack, the areas include working on playing spin, not getting bogged down by dot balls, and Cottam determining “if our batting order is correct”.
While Mariko Hill’s place at the top of the order is almost set in stone, there are conversations to be had around the rest of the line-up, and there is an argument to be made for promoting wicketkeeper Lemon Cheung from 10.
Hong Kong may point to the gulf in class between the two sides, but their batters made some poor decisions against India, and several wickets were thrown away with bad shots.
“I think what happens, and you see it quite a lot, is you get bogged down and you make poor decisions,” Cottam said.
“If we can rotate the strike, keep picking singles and we halve the dot balls, it takes a lot of pressure off, so that rash shot doesn’t come into your mindset.”
Having only recently taken the role with Cricket Hong Kong, the 49-year-old is still very much in the getting-to-know-you phase of his job, but the players aren’t complete strangers.
A former coach with Indonesia’s men’s and women’s teams, Cottam said he had seen the Hong Kong side three or four years ago in Thailand, adding that they were now “a much better team than they were then, and the last coach has done a fantastic job”.
But the new man in charge – whose most recent post was high-performance manager with the Bangladesh national sports institute – knows he is there to ensure the team “keep improving”, and had meetings on Wednesday about how that could happen.
Hong Kong to host women’s cricket Emerging Teams Asia Cup
Even if the batting line-up is open for debate, the 11 players who take the field are largely unchallenged for their places. As such, looking at how players progress “is crucial”.
“Let’s get a bit of pressure on these players, because really they pick themselves, so maybe we need a competitive pathway to put them under a little bit of pressure to perform better,” Cottam said.
While Hong Kong had a scheduled rest on Wednesday, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka got an unexpected one after their game at Tin Kwong Road Recreation Ground was washed out by the heavy overnight rain.
There had been little improvement in conditions by the time Malaysia and the United Arab Emirates were expected to start their encounter, and in the end the pair were reduced to a five-over thrash the latter won by five wickets.
Malaysia made 34 for six in their innings, and UAE reached the target with one ball to spare.
