SQUAD TAKEAWAYS
Follow UsOne rarely gets to say this, but, the Neetu David-led Indian women’s selection committee has done a refreshing job while selecting the squad for the upcoming Indian women’s tour of Bangladesh.
The tour which will comprise five T20Is, starts from April 28 (Sunday). The squad selection for it was always going to be a challenging one, considering the Women’s Premier League (WPL) in February-March and the upcoming T20 World Cup in Bangladesh in a few months from now.
There were glaring lacunae exposed in the Indian side after the white ball bilaterals with England and Australia before the WPL. The young five-team tournament was that stage where Amol Muzumdar and Harmanpreet Kaur had to fine-tune their spin attack, find some finishers, add solidity to their pace attack and improve their fielding and fitness.
Not much progress has been made on fielding and fitness, two factors on which the head coach Muzumdar wanted to work the most with the Indian women.
However, there were quite a few domestic Indian talents that showed themselves fit for the positions the Indian team management were searching for, and the selectors have taken the first step right by selecting such players.
There are some fascinating takeaways from this squad selection, with far-reaching consequences considering the upcoming Women's T20 World Cup. Let’s look at them.
WPL performances are being rewarded!
Sajana Sajeevan has been grinding in the domestic circuit for more than a decade now and has been at the forefront of the growth spurt visible in Kerala women’s cricket as their key allrounder. But chances are astronomically high that you wouldn’t have known her before she smacked her first ball for a six when her side needed five runs to win off one ball.
But Sajana didn’t stop there. She scored 57 runs in the limited opportunities she got to bat at the death and struck at 167.7 at an average of 28.5, the third-highest strike rate in the 16-20 overs phase in WPL 2024. Amongst Indian players, only Richa Ghosh scored quicker in this phase.
However, considering the pattern of selection in the past, Sajana’s India call-up was still a long shot as she isn’t exactly young (29 years 103 days), and the selectors have preferred younger players over the likes of her. Thankfully, this time that wasn’t the case.
The selectors also recognised the need for a quality leg spinner in the Indian setup and chose to go with the RCB leggie Asha Sobhana, who was stellar in RCB’s title-winning season. She was the best leg spinner in the league by a distance and the second-best spinner overall, with Shreyanka Patil being the best one.
There can’t be a bigger validation for Asha at 33, whose show of skills and temperament during the WPL have been rewarded by the selectors.
Radha Yadav’s glorious return and an enviable spin attack
Radha was in some serious form during the WPL season, bowling a lot slower and with a lot more revolutions on the ball, and picked up 10 wickets at an economy of 7.5 and strike rate of 15 balls/dismissal.
With her batting ability down the order, the selectors decided to give her a chance ahead of the likes of Tanuja Kanwer, who also bowled brilliantly in the WPL and picked the same number of wickets as Radha.
Along with Radha and Saika Ishaque’s left-arm spin, and Deepti Sharma and Patil’s off-spin, India will have the leg-spin of Asha to rely on in the upcoming Bangladesh series. On paper, this looks like quite a comprehensive spin attack as all these spinners were in form during the WPL.
Hence, it’s only natural to have high expectations with this bunch.
Dayalan Hemalatha’s selection is a welcome sign
Jemimah Rodrigues isn’t part of the Bangladesh tour due to an injury, which frees up a position in the top order for a batter who needs to anchor, but do that at an accelerated pace.
This time, the selectors have given the team management two options to replace her in Dayalan Hemalatha and Yastika Bhatia. Both batters dished out some high-intent batting displays in the WPL, and Yastika’s keeping also looked a lot better this season.
In the past, the team has chosen to play the likes of Deepti Sharma or Devika Vaidya at the top to anchor the innings, but such selections show that the team is looking for quick scores throughout the batting order. Deepti Sharma’s much-improved batting numbers as a finisher this WPL further add to the strength of Indian batting.
With the likes of Smriti Mandhana, Shafali Verma, Yastika, Harmanpreet Kaur, Richa, Hemalatha, Deepti Sharma, Pooja Vastrakar and Sajana making up the core of India’s batting, this team seems quite strong on paper.
Now, the ball is in the team management’s court to not make tactical errors and play their best eleven on the day.
