Veda Krishanmurthy dropped, Priya Punia gets maiden India call-up for NZ tour

India will play three ODIs in New Zealand beginning January 24 as part of the ICC Women's Championship before playing three T20 Internationals

The BCCI announced a 15-member woman ODI and T20I squad for the forthcoming New Zealand New Zealand tour beginning next month. The announcement was made a day after WV Raman was appointed as team’s head coach.

Mithali Raj will lead the Indian eves in three ODIs, beginning January 24 as part of the ICC Women's Championship. After the One Dayers, they are scheduled to play a 3-match T20I series under the leadership of Harmanpreet Kaur.

On the other hand, out-of-form Veda Krishnamurthy was dropped from both the squads. Mona Meshram replaced Veda in the ODI squad while two changes were made in the squad that went to the West Indies for the World T20.

Shikha Pandey replaced injured pacer Pooja Vastrakar in the T20 squad while uncapped Priya Punia was picked in place of Veda.

Here’re the ODI and T20I squads:

ODI Squad:

Mithali Raj (captain), Poonam Raut, Smriti Mandhana, Jemimah Rodrigues, Harmanpreet Kaur, Deepti Sharma, Tanya Bhatia (wk), Mona Meshram, Ekta Bist, Mansi Joshi, Dayalan Hemlatha, Poonam Yadav, Rajeshwari Gayakwad, Jhulan Goswami, Shikha Pandey.

T20 Squad:

Harmanpreet Kaur (captain), Smriti Mandhana (vc), Mithali Raj, Deepti Sharma, Jemimah Rodrigues, Anuja Patil, Dayalan Hemlatha, Mansi Joshi, Shikha Pandey, Tanya Bhatia (wk), Poonam Yadav, Ekta Bist, Radha Yadav, Arundhati Reddy, Priya Punia.

The New Zealand tour will be the team's first assignment after its controversial exit from the World T20 last month when it lost to England in the semi-finals.