Danielle pummels the bowlers to continue strange love for India

Chelsmford, July 15 (IANS) England’s opening batswoman Danielle Wyatt harbours strange love for India. The 30-year-old once wanted to marry Virat Kohli and announced her intention as a star-stricken 22-year-old over seven years ago on Twitter. She also loves to hammer Indian bowlers as she showed on Wednesday night, making an unbeaten 89 to lead her team to an eight-wicket win in the final T20I, thanks to which England won the multi-format series.”It was about time [to get back to form]. It was my night today. Glad to contribute to a series win. It was a beautiful pitch, came on nice and I felt that my best options were to hit straight as well as over cover,” said Danielle, whose shots over the bowle’s’ head after dancing down the pitch against spinners are something the England m’n’s team can draw some inspiration from. The England men’s team had come a cropper on spin-friendly pitches during the Test series in India in February-March. “There is always pressure to do well, I just try to enjoy it. Will try to enjoy myself on and off the field, score runs, and then see what happens [to my ODI future],” added Danielle, who is also known as Danni and was left out of ODI squad that beat India 2-1 before the T20s. Danielle, seemingly, gets charged up while playing T20 cricket against India. It is because she plays spin and uses her feet just like teammate Natalie Sciver, who made 42 off 36 balls and shared a century stand. Danielle’s overall career average in 119 T20 Internationals is 20.43 but against India it is 35.07. She has one century and two fifties in 19 T20 games against India. In a 2018 T20 tie against India in Mumbai, she had made 64-ball 124 -century in 52 balls – to help England register the biggest successful chase in the hist’ry of Women’s T20 International cricket. Danielle had first shot to limelight for proposing Virat Kohli on Twitter. “Kholi (sic) marry me,” Danielle had tweeted on April 4, 2014. A few months later, when th’ two met on India’s tour of England in 2014, Kohli advised her against putting out such tweets. “When we met, he said to me: ‘You can’t do things like that on Twitter! They take things seriously!’ I was like, ‘okay. Sorry!'” she was quoted as saying in the media. Kohli, who endured a poor run of form during that 2014 tour, averaging 13.4, however, gifted her a bat. Danielle uses that bat sometimes in the nets. –IANS kh/bsk