Mithali Raj seeks tips from Sachin & MSD

Indian Star batswoman Mithali Raj is seeking tips from none other than our Little master -Sachin Tendulkar and Mahendra Singh Dhoni to prepare better for next year's Women's World Cup in Australia.

Mithali Raj who was former captain of Indian women's team said that since they hardly had opportunities to play international matches before the quadrennial event in March, suggestions from the people like sachin tendulkar would really help them prepare well.

The level at which they play, their opinion would be significant for us. If I get a chance I would love to take some tips from Sachin about my batting," Mithali, who turns 26 on Wednesday,

The former skipper is also an admirer of men's team captain Dhoni and said she would love to learn some tricks of the trade from the Khel Ratna awardee.

I want to take some tips from Dhoni on leading the side in big tournaments. Advice of all the senior players of the men's cricket team would be helpful for us because they belong to a different league altogether," she said.

The Indian women's team is relying on domestic cricket matches and training camps in the next three months to prepare for the World Cup as no international matches are scheduled in this period.

However, Mithali is not worried as she believes the recently concluded one-day series in Australia has given them a chance to get familiarised with conditions Down Under.

we lost that series we got a taste of the local conditions there. Some of the World Cup matches will be played at one of those venues, so that will help," Mithali said. A veteran of 108 ODIs, Mithali said the onus would be on the top-order to put pressure on the opponents.

"The batting order has to fire if we have to perform well. The openers would have to give a good start so that the middle-order do not get under pressure. It would be too much to ask the lower order to bail out the team from crisis situation.

"As far as bowling is concerned, Jhulan Goswami needs a good strike partner at the other end. We failed in getting early wickets and that was the reason behind our recent defeat. We will be doing something about it keeping the World Cup in mind," the former skipper said.

Mithali, who has a double hundred to her credit in Test cricket, rued that fact that she did not get much opportunity to play the longer version of the game.

"We play too many ODIs, sometimes we even forget when we last played a Test," Mithali, who has played just eight Test matches since 2002, said adding, "this is because perhaps there are no spectators for women's cricket".