Thursday, January 6, 2022

The World Cup XV - the Women in Blue

There is an ODI World Cup happening soon. The Women's ODI World Cup, in to be held in New Zealand next month. The last one in England, 2017 was special. For quite a big number of fans, that was the tournament in which Women's cricket became just cricket. Who can forget that Harmanpreet Kaur special in the semi-finals!

However, the road since then hasn't been the smoothest, with Covid, specially creating all sorts of troubles. The Qualifying cycle and the final Qualifiers were disrupted by Covid. Even the tournament itself was pushed back by a year. And, just to add to the uncertainty, there is another Covid ongoing at different parts of the world. 

We still hope that the tournament proceeds as per schedule with no interruptions due to the pandemic.

Meanwhile, India have named their squad for the tournament. 

Mithali Raj (C), Harmanpreet Kaur (VC), Smriti Mandhana, Shafali Varma, Yastika Bhatia, Deepti Sharma, Richa Ghosh, Taniya Bhatia, Sneh Rana, Pooja Vastrakar, Jhulan Goswami, Meghna Singh, Renuka Singh, Poonam Yadav & Rajeshwari Gayakwad. 

S Meghna, Ekta Bisht & Simran Bahadur will be the stand-bys.

Team seems to be good mixture of experience and youth. There are some questions on certain non-selections e.g. Jemimah, Shikha Pandey. But the selectors know best. The World Cup would be the last hurrah for two legends of the game - mithali Raj and Jhulan Goswami, both of whom are at end of two decades plus international careers (Interestingly both have biopics coming up).

Wishing the very best to the squad. They also play New Zealand prior to the World Cup. That should be a good familiarization with the playing conditions.

Also, hoping for a safe tournament for all players and support staff,

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