The Indian Women’s Cricket Team have been dealt a major blow as their star opener Smriti Mandhana would not feature in the opening match of the ICC T20 World Cup against arch-rivals Pakistan to be played at Cape Town on 12 February 2023.
Smriti Mandhana has been the backbone of the Indian batting line-up along with Shafali Verma providing aggressive starts. Indian team would be missing her services in the opening match. The Indian team practised and played tri-series matches involving South Africa and West Indies. Indian coach Kanitkar said that Mandhana does not have a fracture and would feature from the 2nd match onwards against West Indies on 15th February.
“You want to be playing the strong teams, the arch-rivals if you can call them that,” Kanitkar said. “Few of them have done it in the past, few haven’t. We are totally prepared for what happens, and the atmosphere is good.”
The Indian team would be looking to start the tournament on a high note. With the absence of Mandhana, the onus rely on Shafali Verma to provide explosive starts. Harmanpreet Kaur will lead the side and would look to start the tournament on a winning note.
Indian team has a mix of youth and experience with top-quality players. They lost their matches against arch-rivals Pakistan in the 2012 and 2016 editions of the T20 World Cup.
Smriti Mandhana to play a key role for India
“Spinners will have a role to play,” he said. “A lot of matches have taken place here, lots of T20 cricket has been played. “Pitches in East London were pretty similar to what we get in India, but Cape Town [venue for India’s first two group games] not sure. I watched the match yesterday [South Africa v Sri Lanka] and the pitch looked good. There was some assistance for spin, but it will make for good cricket.”
Apart from Shafali Verma, the Indian team has decent batters like Jemimah Rodrigues, Deepti Sharma, Harmanpreet Kaur, and Richa Ghosh that can change the course of the game with their explosive batting.
The Indian team has top-quality spinners like Deepti Sharma, Rajeshwari Gayakwad, Radha Yadav, and Devika Vaidya.
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