The 11^th edition of the Women’s World Cup is about to start from 23^rd June with India, South Africa, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, New Zealand, West Indies, hosts England, Australia will take part in the tournament.

The first World Cup was held in the year 1973 at England. Australia has won the Women’s World Cup 6 times, England 3 times and once New Zealand.

The Indian women’s cricket team qualified after winning the ICC World Cup qualifiers held in March this year. They defeated South Africa in the finals. Their best performance in the prestigious tournament came during the 2005 edition where they finished runners-up losing to Australia. During the last edition, India finished 7^th behind Pakistan.

In the 2017 ICC women’s World Cup, India will face off against England in the opening match of the tournament on 24^th June at County Ground, Derby. After that they will take on West Indies on 29^th June, 2^nd July against Pakistan, 5^th July against Sri Lanka, 8^th July against South Africa, 12^th July against Australia and the final league match against New Zealand on 15^th July. Each team will play other once and the top four teams will qualify for the semi-finals stage.

The Indian team will be captained by experienced Mithali Raj who will be playing her 4^th World Cup.  They have been doing in the recent past winning the four-nation tournament held in South Africa. Before the main, the women’s team have played 2 warm up matches against New Zealand and Sri Lanka.

The batting department consists of Poonam Raut and Deepti Sharma who registered the highest wicket partnership for any wicket in women’s ODI cricket. Smriti Mandhana will be the third opener for the team during the tournament. Both of them put on 320 runs for the first wicket against Ireland breaking the record of SJ Taylor and CMG Atkins of England.

Mithali Raj will come at number 3 who has lots of experience to her name. She has played a total of 177 One day Internationals and scored 5,781 runs with an average of 52.08. Her best score has been 114*. Currently, she is number 2 in the latest ICC women’s batting ranking.

Veda Krishnamurthy, Harmanpreet Kaur, Mona Meshram will be the middle order. Sushma Verma will do the wicket keeping duties in the tournament.

Jhulan Goswami the highest wicket taker in women’s ODI cricket will be responsible for picking early wickets with the new ball. Shikha Pandey, Mansi Joshi are the fast bowlers.

The Indian team consists of Poonam Yadav, Deepti Sharma, Ekta Bisht, Rajeshwari Gayakwad, Harmanpreet Kaur as the spinners. Nuzhat Parveen is the new member of the squad.

“Our first target will be to reach the semi-finals, but for that, you need to be able to play good cricket throughout the tournament and have good momentum,” Mithali was quoted on ICC”s official website as saying.

“The conditions there (South Africa) are completely different to what we are facing here in England. We can take a lot of confidence, but we need to start fresh again in the World Cup,” she added.

England, Australia, New Zealand are strong contenders to win the trophy. The Indian women’s team should play positive cricket from the 1^st game and if they could start with a win it will set the tone for the team.

“The World Cup is a big stage, and that”s four years of preparation. We”re looking forward to it, it”s going to be my fourth World Cup, so I”m looking forward to some good games,” Mithali said.