Ready for Restart: Indian women face tricky S Africa test

KIMBERLEY: Seven months gone after their stupendous show in the World Cup, Indian women's cricket team is ready shake off their rustiness as they take on South Africa in a threematch series, which is a first round fixture of the ICC Women's Championship.

The three-match series starting on Monday will give both teams a chance to directly qualify for the 2021 ICC Women's World Cup.

Kimberley will be the venue of the ODIS on February 5 and

7, while the series will finish in Potchefstroom on February 10.

Mithali Raj and her team did not get to play any international games -- thanks to lackadaisical planning on the part of the BCCI and the biggest challenge will be to get back into the groove.

With women's cricket being closely followed post World Cup, Mithali knows that their responsibility has increased manifold.

"Every match will be scrutinised by people, by the critics, by everybody, because now people have seen the actual standard of women's cricket and the Indian team," Mith- ali said.

"So, yes, from now on whatever matches that we get to play, will be closely watched by all of them (and) followed by all the cricket fanatic people in our country as well as around the world," she added.

The skipper herself has been busy with a series of promotional events and only played a few matches in the National One-day Championship for women.

"I am eager to get back to playing international cricket.

It has been a while since the World Cup and the South Africa tour will be the first once since. It is good to play against good sides in challenging conditions because it gets the best out of a side which is trying to improve," she said. Teams: India: Mithali Raj (captain), Taniya Bhatia (wicket- keeper), Ekta Bisht, Rajeshwari Gayakwad, Jhulan Goswami, Harmanpreet Kaur (vice-captain), Veda Krishnamurthy, Smriti Mandhana, Mona Meshram, Shikha Pandey, Punam Raut, Jemimah Rodrigues, Deepti Sharma, Pooja Vastrakar, Sushma Verma (wicket-keeper) and Poonam Yadav.