Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) secretary Devajit Saikia is hopeful that the India women’s team will break the ‘jinx’ in the upcoming 2025 World Cup at home with a ‘remarkable performance’.
The World Cup will be jointly hosted by India and Sri Lanka, starting September 30 with an opening clash between the two hosts. The Harmanpreet Kaur-led side isn’t the favorite to win it, as shown by their recent 2-1 series defeat to Australia, but they have significantly improved since the 2017 edition of the tournament, when they lost to England in the final.
The team has much more depth, both in the batting and on the bench, and has a well-rounded bowling attack suited to the conditions at home. They’ll get more opportunities to fill out the remaining
chinks in warm-up matches against England and New Zealand, which is a first for the tournament.
“In the past, warm-up matches were held for the ICC (Men’s) World Cup and for the first time the ICC Women’s World Cup will start from Guwahati,” Saikia said, as quoted by PTI. “The opening match will be played between India and Sri Lanka. As the matches are being held in India as well as in Sri Lanka, everybody is backing our Indian team. Recently, they have done extremely well in England also, which is a big achievement for the Indian team. (The) Indian women’s cricket has come of age and I am sure they will produce a remarkable performance in the upcoming World Cup. I hope that the jinx will be broken this time,” he added.
The Australia series was closely contested. Even when it set a record target of 413 runs in the final ODI, the team came to 369 runs in 47 overs. Had they fielded better, both the first and third ODIs might have seen different results.
“It was a very keenly contested series, which Australia won 2-1. But India played extremely well. Australia is a very good team, but India is catching up. Till now, India has not won any ICC women’s trophy, so this is a big opportunity for the team to do well,” Saikia said.
India’s squad for Women’s ODI World Cup
Harmanpreet Kaur (capt), Smriti Mandhana (vice-capt), Pratika Rawal, Harleen Deol, Deepti Sharma, Jemimah Rodrigues, Renuka Singh Thakur, Arundhati Reddy, Richa Ghosh (wicketkeeper), Kranti Gaud, Amanjot Kaur, Radha Yadav, Sree Charani, Sneh Rana, Uma Chetry (wicketkeeper)
