BCCI announces India Women's squad for Asia Cup T20

One of the most important tournaments of Women’s cricket is knocking right at the door, the Women’s Asia Cup T20 will be held in Malaysia in two months from now. Ahead of the crucial tournament, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has announced the Indian squad that’ll be participating in the Asia Cup matches. The selections have been made by the all-India Women’s Selection Committee.

The tournament will feature six teams – India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Thailand, and host Malaysia. Starting on June 1, 2018, the Women’s Asia Cup T20 will have its finals on June 11, 2018. As per the fixtures, the teams will first play the round robin matches, then the top two teams on the points table will qualify for the final. The Indian team will be led by Harmanpreet Kaur.

Good mix of players in the BCCI named squad for Women’s Asia Cup T20

The 15-member squad was signed on by the BCCI Acting Secretary, Amitabh Choudhary and seems to be a good mix of players, containing young blood and experienced cricketers in good proportions. The squad resembles the side India had played in the Women’s T20 Tri-Series at home earlier this year, with the only new inclusion being Ekta Bisht, in place of Rumeli Dhar. Young Smriti Mandhana will be serving as the vice-captain while Taniya Bhatia will don the keeping gloves.

The Indian Women’s team had a forgettable outing in the T20 Tri-Series with Australia and England in March 2018. In spite of being the host, India were able to muster a solitary win in four matches and consequently, the finals were held between England and Australia, which the latter won comfortably by a margin of 57 runs. Mandhana was the highest run-getter for the Women in Blue, with 208 runs in 4 matches at a strike rate of 165.08. Veteran Indian pacer, Jhulan Goswami ended the tournament as the leading wicket-taker for the nation, with 5 scalps in 4 games to her name.

Here’s the India squad for Women’s Asia Cup T20:

Harmanpreet Kaur (Captain), Smriti Mandhana (Vice-Captain), Mithali Raj, Jemimah Rodrigues, Deepti Sharma, Anuja Patil, Veda Krishnamurthy, Taniya Bhatia (wicket-keeper), Jhulan Goswami, Pooja Vastrakar, Shikha Pandey, Poonam Yadav, Rajeshwari Gayakwad, Ekta Bisht, Mona Meshram

Watch Jhulan Goswami’s interview with CricTracker