The Indian Women’s Cricket Team had a mixed-bag year in 2023. They played well but could not qualify for the finals of the ICC T20 World Cup played in South Africa.
It saw the start of the inaugural Women’s Premier League with 5 teams including Gujarat Giants, Royal Challengers Bangalore, UP Warriorz, Delhi Capitals and Mumbai Indians taking part in the tournament. Mumbai Indians won the first edition of WPL 2023 in Mumbai.
There have been some brilliant performances in the entire year with the Indian women’s team winning the Asian Games gold medal.
Here we look at the 3 biggest positives for the Indian women’s Team in 2023
- Indian Team produced brilliant performances in Test matches
The Indian women’s team got to play two Test matches against England at Navi Mumbai and then Australia at Wankhede Stadium, Mumbai.
It was a superb performance by the Indian women’s team in both matches. The Indian women’s team thrashed England with a 347 runs victory which is the biggest in women’s cricket. Deepti Sharma performed brilliantly and was named the player of the match award.
The Indian women’s team registered their first-ever Test victory over Australia with an 8 wicket victory. It was a superb bowling effort to bowl out Australia for just 219 and then posted 408 runs in the first innings. Indian bowlers did a superb job in the second innings with a target of 75 runs. These two victories will be a huge boost as there are no Test matches at home in the 2022-25 Future Tours programme.
- Indian women’s team win Asian Games gold.
The Indian women’s eventually ended their streak of losing knockout matches. They took part in the Asian Games cricket tournament for the first time. Smriti Mandhana led during the quarterfinals against Malaysia and then defeated Bangladesh in the semi-finals by 8 wickets.
It was an impressive performance by the Indian women’s team in the finals as they defeated Sri Lanka by 19 runs to win the gold medal title. This victory will confidence to break the jinx of not winning the ICC title.
They could win the Commonwealth Games losing to Australia and then in the ICC World T20 title. This victory will give confidence for Indian players ahead of the World T20 tournament to be played in Bangladesh this year.
- Key Players becoming consistent.
The Indian players became consistent at world level. Jemimah Rodrigues showed consistency during the ICC World T20 2023 and proved his worth with brilliant knocks in the Test matches against England and Australia.
Pooja Vastkar showed great improvement as an all-rounder. She took wickets in Test matches and One-day internationals. She improved as a batter in the ODI with 38.50 from 28.27 last year.
Richa Ghosh proved his worth with some lovely batting performances and also improved as a wicketkeeper. She played a superb 96 runs in the 2nd ODI match against Australia but could not take India home.
Ghosh also showed improvement in the T20I format with an average of 32.16 in 2023 as compared to 21.58 in 2022. She made her debut in Test matches and scored 52 against Australia laying a strong foundation for a big total.
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