Kolkata: BCCI (Board of Control for Cricket in India) took centre stage and announced India’s squad for the upcoming Women’s Asia Cup 2026. It is interesting to note that veteran batter Harmanpreet Kaur remains the skipper of the side, with Smriti Mandhana being the vice-captain.
The likes of Shafali Verma, Jemimah Rodrigues, Bharti Fulmali, Richa Ghosh, and many more stars have been named in the squad, as India went with a largely unchanged squad for the tournament.
Prema Rawat has retained her spot in the squad as well. Shreyanka Patil does not feature in the squad, as she has not yet recovered from her ankle ligament injury that saw her being ruled out of the T20 World Cup midway as well.
Schedule for the Women’s Asia Cup 2026 is yet to be announced but is expected to run from late August to mid-September. After the conclusion of the Asia Cup, the Asian Games will follow, as they are slated to take place from September 17 to 22.
With several star players in the squad, the Women in Blue will go into the Asia Cup as the heavy favourites, and the likes of Pratika Rawal, Uma Chetry, Minnu Mani, and others being in the reserves, the side does have enough firepower that is needed to come out of the tournament as the champions.
India have won the women’s edition of the Asia Cup seven times so far. However, they suffered a shocking defeat against Sri Lanka in the final of the 2024 Women’s Asia Cup.
The upcoming 2026 edition of the Women’s Asia Cup will be played in the T20I format, with a total of eight teams expected to feature in this year’s tournament.
In the 2026 Women’s Asia Cup, Smriti will have a chance to break the record for scoring the most runs in women’s T20Is. She is currently second on the list with 4,538 runs in 171 matches and needs 221 more runs to surpass Suzie Bates’ tally of 4,758 runs in 186 matches.
India squad for Women’s Asia Cup 2026 :
Harmanpreet Kaur (capt), Smriti Mandhana (vice-capt), Shafali Verma, Jemimah Rodrigues, Bharti Fulmali, Richa Ghosh (wk), G Kamalini (wk), Deepti Sharma, Radha Yadav, Prema Rawat, Arundhati Reddy, Kranti Gaud, Renuka Singh, N Shree Charani, Nandani Sharma
Reserves: Pratika Rawal, Uma Chetry (wk), Vaishnavi Sharma, Sayali Satghare, Minnu Mani.
