The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) on Wednesday announced the squad for the upcoming Women's Asia Cup 2022 which is slated to take place from October 1. Harmanpreet Kaur will be leading the 15-member side in Bangladesh. Taniya Bhatia and Simran Dil Bahadur have been added as two standby players.
India will play their first match against Sri Lanka on the opening day, followed by an encounter against arch-rivals Pakistan on October 7.
BCCI secretary Jay Shah in a release said: “The All-India Women's Selection Committee has picked India’s squad for the upcoming ACC Women’s T20 Championship 2022 to be played at Sylhet, Bangladesh from 1st to 15th October”.
Jay Shah was elated and predicted that the participation of 7 women teams in a complete round-robin format will prove to be a huge boost to the ACC associate teams. As a cherry on the cake, the tournament will be conducted while adhering to the vision of ACC for women’s cricket.
He also added, "The ACC, with this vision in mind, is constantly striving toward being more inclusive. The 2022 edition of the Women's Asia Cup will therefore see more embedded female participation. For the first time ever, an ACC tournament will see an all-female presence on the playing field, with the women's tournament being slated to have only female umpires and female match referees. As an organization, we hope to continue to take steps to strengthen the sport by highlighting female talent in every avenue".
The seven teams will be competing in a round-robin format including hosts Bangladesh, Pakistan, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, and UAE to make it to the top-four and the semifinal stages. The semifinals will take place on October 13 with the final clash scheduled on October 15.
India’s squad: Harmanpreet Kaur (Captain), Smriti Mandhana (vice-captain), Deepti Sharma, Shafali Verma, Jemimah Rodrigues, Sabbineni Meghana, Richa Ghosh (wicket-keeper), Sneh Rana, Dayalan Hemalatha, Meghna Singh, Renuka Thakur, Pooja Vastrakar, Rajeshwari Gayakwad, Radha Yadav, KP Navgire