ALLROUND INDIA LOOK TO MAKE UP FOR THE LOSS IN 50OVER WORLD CUP FINAL
The narrow nine-run defeat at the hands of England in the final of the 2017 Women’s World Cup will still be rankling the Indian women’s cricket team even though they rose in popularity charts despite being the runners-up at the mega-event. When they land in West Indies for the upcoming ICC Women’s World Twenty20, the Harmanpreet Kaur-led Indian team would be eyeing the title and look at avenging the 2017 World Cup loss. With heavyweights Harmanpreet Kaur, Smriti Mandhana and veteran Mithali Raj in the mix, the Indian batting is quite strong on paper. Meanwhile, Veda Krishnamurthy, Jemimah Rodrigues and Taniya Bhatia have shown in the past what difference their batting can make to the result of the match. While the experienced Jhulan Goswami’s absence will hurt India, spinners Anuja Patil, Poonam Yadav, Ekta Bisht will be the key for India in the T20 format.
The consistent Mansi Joshi, Pooja Vastrakar and Arundathi Reddy will be India’s speed battery. The 2018 ICC World Twenty20 in West Indies might also be India’s most prolific cricketer Mithali Raj’s last outing in the shorter format as she has been quite vocal that she doesn’t enjoy T20 format. With India beating Sri Lanka in both the T20 and ODI series under new coach Ramesh Powar, following by a clean sweep against Australia ‘A’ team in a T20 threematch series in Mumbai, it would help India as they go to the Caribbean with confidence. India would be wary that it is placed in Group B which has teams like Australia, New Zealand and the in-form Pakistan, although, Ireland won’t be much of a challenge.
India takes on New Zealand in the opening match on November 9.
India’s T20 record: Matches played: 93, Won: 49, Losses: 42, No result: 2, Ranking: 5
Squad: Harmanpreet Kaur (captain), Taniya Bhatia, Ekta Bisht, Dayalan Hemalatha, Mansi Joshi, Veda Krishnamurthy, Smriti Mandhana, Anuja Patil, Mithali Raj, Arundathi Reddy, Jemimah Rodrigues, Deepti Sharma, Pooja Vastrakar, Radha Yadav, Poonam Yadav.