Harmanpreet to lead India women in World T20
NEW DELHI: Harmanpreet Kaur will lead India in the Women’s World Twenty20 scheduled to be played in West Indies from November 9-24.
The women’s selection committee of the Board of Control for Cricket in India’s (BCCI) picked a 15-member squad on Friday. Veteran Mithali Raj is also part of the squad. Seasoned Smriti Mandhana, who has been in blistering form this season, has been named as the vice-captain.
Mandhana cracked 421 runs in nine innings in the women’s cricket Super League, playing for Western Storm.
India, which hosted the last edition of the tournament in 2016 and finished fifth, are placed in Group B along with Australia, New Zealand, Pakistan and Ireland in the 10-team event.
The tournament will kick off with the match between India and New Zealand in Guyana on November 9.
India will next play Pakistan on November 11. It will be a revenge match for the Indian team that had lost to the arch rivals at home during the 2016 World T20.
Defending champions and host West Indies are placed in Group A alongwith England, South Africa, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.
India’s best performance in the event was semi-final appearance in 2009 and 2010. Australia have won the tournament thrice (2010, 2012 and 2014) while
England (2009) and
West Indies (2016) have clinched the title once each.
In the last edition, West Indies defeated favourites Australia in the final by a comfortable eight-wicket margin.
The Indian team would be looking to put up a better performance than the last edition. There was lot of hope from
Indian team when the tournament was hosted at home in 2016. The
hosts, however, could win only one of its four league matches. The only team India defeated was Bangladesh before losing to Pakistan, England and West Indies.
The sixth edition of the event is also the first time the women’s tournament is being held separately. So far the men and women tournaments were held together at one venue.
There will be 23 matches in total and it will be the first time the Decision Review System (DRS) will be used in any ICC World Twenty20 event.
Squad: Harmanpreet Kaur (capt), Smriti Mandhana (vice-capt), Mithali Raj, Jemimah Rodrigues, Veda Krishnamurthy, Deepti Sharma, Tanya Bhatia (wk), Poonam Yadav, Radha Yadav, Anuja Patil, Ekta Bisht, Hemlata, Mansi Joshi, Pooja Vastrakar, Arundhati Reddy.