'South Africa series will ensure our match practice before T20 WC'- Amol Muzumdar

Indian women's cricket team head coach Amol Muzumdar believes that the all-format home series against South Africa will ensure proper game-time and match practice for the team head of the T20 World Cup in October.

"Yes. That continuity is very important ahead of the World Cup. In this series, we are playing the ODI first and then the Test and the T20s. We then go into the Asia Cup, which is once again a T20 event," Mazumdar told the media on Friday.

"By the Asia Cup (scheduled between July 19-28 in Sri Lanka), we should be ready for the T20 World Cup. And then we have a downtime of around seven weeks before we go to Bangladesh. This is a well-thought-out series and I'm looking forward to it," he added.

Muzumdar said the team has entered the road to the World Cup during the recent away five-match T20I series against Bangladesh, which they won 5-0.

"We had fantastic preparations in the last eight weeks. We went to Bangladesh and won the series 5-0. We practiced on the same ground where we were playing in the World Cup. So, we had good preparation," he said.

While the World Cup remains high on their priority list, Muzumdar said the team’s immediate goal was to win the series against South Africa.

"South Africa has always been a competitive side, as this will be a good, hard-fought series. We are looking forward to it,” he added.

The Mumbai stalwart said beyond the tangible target of a series win, the team would like to make further progress in their fielding and other fitness parameters.