Kolkata: The ICC Women’s World Cup starts in New Zealand on Friday. The eight-nation event was supposed to take place in early 2021, but it was delayed owing to the epidemic.
While it had been more than two decades that Women in Blue played World Cup in New Zealand, Mithali Raj is returning to the same country, this time as the captain. India will start their campaign against their arch-rivals Pakistan on Sunday (March 06, 2022).
Raj was a part of the Indian team that played in the 2000 World Cup and in between the team had come agonizingly close to the elusive trophy twice, finishing runners up to Australia in 2005 and to England in 2017.
Although England defeated India in 2017 by nine runs in front of a sold-out crowd at Lord’s, Smriti Mandhana, Deepti Sharma, Harmanpreet Kaur and Rajeshwari Gayakwad grabbed the headlines.
Smriti rose to fame at the 2017 World Cup, when she made headlines by leading the team to the final. She began the World Cup with a 90 against England in Derby, followed by her second ODI century (106*) against the West Indies. Harmanpreet scored an undefeated 171 to help India upset Australia in the semi-final.
Deepti grabbed 12 wickets in the tournament (the most by an Indian), which made the rest of the world pay the note, and she had also smashed 188 against Ireland as an opener in 2017. Rajeshwari replaced Ekta Bisht in the XI of making her debut in 2017 likewise Deepti and immediately made an impact, picking up a maiden five-wicket haul to help India thump the White Ferns by a whopping 186 runs.
Since then, a lot of had changed with respect to the Indian squad, and the country’s success in world women’s cricket in the last couple of years can be attributed largely to these players along with the likes of Mithali Raj, Jhulan Goswami, and Sneha Rana.
India had lost the recent ODI series against New Zealand 1-4 but the team was able to post 250-plus scores consistently.
🚨 NEWS 🚨: India Women’s squad for ICC Women’s World Cup 2022 and New Zealand series announced. #TeamIndia #CWC22 #NZvIND
More Details 🔽https://t.co/qdI6A8NBSH pic.twitter.com/rOZ8X7yRbV
— BCCI Women (@BCCIWomen) January 6, 2022
Thus, this World Cup, which will be hosted in New Zealand, will feature Deepti as an all-rounder at the most appropriate time. As things stand, India would be looking for someone to take over the bowling duties from Jhulan — a role that Deepti could also fill.
Giving players like Harmanpreet Kaur, Shafali, and Smriti Mandhana more leeway to set the tone at the top. With the veteran experience of skipper Mithali and the entire team being one unit, India could aim for their maiden world cup title.
India Squad:
Mithali Raj (c), Harmanpreet Kaur (vc), Smirti Mandhana, Shafali Verma, Deepti Sharma, Yastika Bhatia, Richa Ghosh, Taniya Bhatia, Sneh Rana, Jhulan Goswami, Pooja Vastrakar, Meghna Singh, Renuka Singh Thakur, Rajeshwari Gayakwad, Poonam Yadav
