Vishwas Puri
The India women’s team is all set to face the New Zealand women’s in their opening match of the Women’s T20 World Cup 2024 on Friday in Dubai, UAE. The Indian team will be led by Harmanpreet Kaur who has been part of all the T20 World Cups since the inaugural season.
The Indian team might need to play rigorously in order to start their World Cup campaign with a win. Indian batters such as Jemimah Rodrigues, Shafali Verma, and Deepti Sharma and skipper Harmanpreet Kaur need to step up and contribute with their swift knocks. Shafali and Mandhana have been a good touch since July and performed proficiently in the Asia Cup this year.
The pitches might also not favour the Indian batters as the warm conditions of UAE will dry out the pitches easily, which might assist the spinners. The Indian team will likely play only two pacers in the squad according to the spin friendly conditions.However, the Indian team is abundant of spinners in their squad, having leg spinner Asha Shobhana, left-arm spinner Radha Yadav, and off spinners such as Deepti Sharma and Shreyanka Patil. Shreyanka’s availability is still a subject to fitness as she is on a road to recover from her finger injury.
Meanwhile, the New Zealand team is also fully armed with players such as Sophie Devine, who will be leading the team, along with pacers such as Lea Tahuhu and Leigh Kasperek and skilled all-rounders such as Suzie Bates. The young all-rounder Amelia Kerr, who was part of the Mumbai Indians team in the WPL, will also be a player to watch out for.
However, the Kiwis are still looking weak as compared to the Indian team, which has a mix of experience and young talent. The New Zealand team has not won any of its last 5 T20I matches, and they recently got clean-sweeped by the Australian team. However, a tough battle is expected between both teams .