CWG 2022: Contenders Gear Up For Inaugural Women’s T20 Tournament At Birmingham Games | Preview

India Women among major contenders as they are set to take part in the inaugural Women's T20 tournament at the Birmingham Games 2022

The T20I tournament at Birmingham Commonwealth Games 2022 is historic in its own way. It is for the first that a cricket T20 tournament, and a women’s tournament, is being played at a global event. Cricket has featured in the Commonwealth Games (CWG) once in 1998. In Kuala Lumpur CWG, the 50-over format was used for the men's team competing in the event. South Africa emerged as champions, with Australia and New Zealand clinching the silver and bronze medals respectively.

This time around, 8 women's teams will be contesting at CWG 2022, besides the men's teams, and India is among the hot favourites to win it all. India are a strong contender for the Gold medal and will be looking to live up to the reputation as they begin their campaign on July 29, when they will be taking on the hot favourites and current world champions Australia.

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India are placed alongside Australia, Pakistan, and Barbados in Group A and Group B contains England, New Zealand, South Africa, and Sri Lanka.

England got the automatic qualification as they are the hosts and the rest 5 were picked based on their international rankings. Barbados came into the fold as the winner of the CWI T20 Blaze.

The reason that Barbados is playing in CWG 2022 is that West Indies is a country compiled of islands and these islands are respective countries that present themselves independently in global sporting events circuit (like Jamaica, Trinidad etc).

The 7 teams were confirmed in an aforementioned manner and Sri Lanka qualified via a qualifying tournament played earlier this year.

The scheduled 16 matches will be played at the Edgbaston cricket ground in Birmingham. The matches will begin on July 29, with the final and third-place playoff scheduled for August 7. Barring two days when there will be no match played – August 1 and August 5 – there will be two matches played per day. The first match will begin at 3.30 pm IST and the second at 10.30 pm IST.

India will be led by Harmanpreet Kaur and will be playing their matches from July 29. Here is the schedule:

Opposition	Date	Time
Australia	Friday, July 29	4:30 pm IST
Pakistan	Sunday, July 31	4:30 pm IST
Barbados	Wednesday, August 3	11:30 pm IST

The Harmanpreet Kaur-led team will play further if they finish in the top 2 spots of Group A as the Top 2 Teams of both the groups progress to play the semi-finals. Here is the Indian squad travelling to Birmingham:

Indian Women's Squad For CWG 2022: Harmanpreet Kaur (c), Smriti Mandhana, Shafali Verma, Sabbhineni Meghana, Taniya Sapna Bhatia, Yastika Bhatia, Deepti Sharma, Rajeshwari Gayakwad, Pooja Vastrakar, Meghna Singh, Renuka Thakur, Jemimah Rodrigues, Radha Yadav, Harleen Deol, Sneh Rana.

CWG 2022 Women's Medal Contenders

Besides India, the other two major contenders are current world champions Australia, and an in-form England, both of whom are looking really good and dangerous.

The impeccable form of Tammy Beaumont will be a major miss-out for England as she has been omitted from the squad. "We feel like that's our best squad," said Keightley, confirming that Beaumont's omission was tactical rather than part of a rest-and-rotation strategy through a busy summer.

"The way we want to approach it, we want to be quite aggressive up top, and the players that we've picked we think give us the options to do that. Obviously, Tammy is an amazing player; she's performed really well over a long period of time. I suppose the challenge is out to Tam to go away and work on things that we've been working on and show us why she should be in the squad. I'm sure she'll bounce back, that's what we want really: we want pressure on and players getting better in every format. In 50-over cricket, you can't match Tammy's record – I think it speaks for itself. In T20, I think there is still some room for growth and improvement there, and it's up to her to go away and do it. The Hundred is a fantastic opportunity to do that, and we'll see what she can do," added Keightley.

Sam Ecclestone’s off-spin is one of the biggest cards England hold. England Women are currently hosting South Africa Women in their ongoing series where they have whitewashed the South Africa Women comprehensively as South Africa got outclassed in every department by a pretty significant amount.

England Women will prepare for the Birmingham Games as they play a three-match T20I series starting from July 21.

England Squad For Birmingham Games 2022: Heather Knight (c), Maia Bouchier, Katherine Brunt, Alice Capsey, Kate Cross, Freya Davies, Sophia Dunkley, Sophie Ecclestone, Sarah Glenn, Amy Jones, Freya Kemp, Nat Sciver, Bryony Smith, Issy Wong, Danni Wyatt.

Australia are also in great touch and the Meg Lanning-led side is currently playing a tri-series T20I tournament in Ireland against Ireland and Pakistan. Australia’s match with Pakistan was washed out and they thumped Ireland in their second match as they barely broke a sweat. Australia Women’s squad will walk into Birmingham after the conclusion of the tri-series and will be carrying the momentum from it.

Australia Women Squad For Birmingham Games 2022: Meg Lanning (c), Rachael Haynes, Darcie Brown, Nicola Carey, Ashleigh Gardner, Grace Harris, Alyssa Healy, Jess Jonassen, Alana KinTahlia McGrath, Beth Mooney, Ellyse Perry, Megan Schutt, Annabel Sutherland, Amanda-Jade Wellington.