The Indian women’s cricket team will take on New Zealand on Thursday after winning both their consecutive matches in Group A of the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup. By winning this match, the Indian women’s cricket team would like to secure their place in the semi-finals. In the first match, the Indian team did not have much effort to win by 17 runs over Australia and then by 18 runs over Bangladesh.
The Indian women’s cricket team performed well in bowling, but in batting, Harmanpreet Kaur and Smriti Mandhana are expected to score big. Sixteen-year-old Shefali Verma has so far presented a spectacular view of her aggressive attitude.
Shefali Verma scored 39 runs off 17 balls against Bangladesh apart from scoring 29 runs against Australia. Jemimah Rodriguez, who batted at number three, also played two useful innings of 26 and 34, but captain Harmanpreet could not score big and the team would expect a big inning from them. The Indian team is expected to return veteran Mandhana, who did not play against Bangladesh due to fever.
In the middle order, Deepti Sharma made a useful contribution by scoring an unbeaten 49 against Australia, while Veda Krishnamurthy scored an unbeaten 20 off 11 balls against Bangladesh. In the bowling department, Poonam Yadav performed brilliantly in both matches. He has taken seven wickets so far.
Poonam Yadav got full support from medium-speed bowler Shikha Pandey. Shikha has taken five wickets so far. However, New Zealand’s record against India has been good recently. He had won the last three matches played between these two teams. A year ago he defeated the Indian team 3–0 in the home series of three T20 matches. However, India would like to take inspiration from the big 34-run win against New Zealand in the T20 World Cup played in 2018 in the West Indies.
Harmanpreet played a memorable inning of 103 runs in that match. New Zealand has some top-level players in the form of captain Sophie Devine, Suzy Bates, Lee Tahuhu, and Amelia Kerr. The Kiwi team easily defeated Sri Lanka by seven wickets in the first match. Devine scored an unbeaten 75 in that match.
Teams
India: Harmanpreet Kaur (captain), Smriti Mandhana, Jemimah Rodriguez, Deepti Sharma, Shefali Verma, Poonam Yadav, Radha Yadav, Tanya Bhatia (wicketkeeper), Harleen Deol, Rajeshwari Gaikwad, Richa Ghosh, Veda Krishnamurthy, Shikha Pandey, Arundhati Red, Pooja Vastrakar.
New Zealand: Sophie Devine (captain), Rosemary Meyer, Amelia Kerr, Suzy Bates, Lauren Downs, Maddy Green, Holly Huddleston, Hayley Jensen, Leigh Kasperek, Jess Kerr, Katie Martin (wicketkeeper), Katie Perkins, Anna Peterson, Rachel Priest, Li Tahuhu.
