India Women begin elusive trophy search with T20 World Cup opener against Australia

Indian women's cricket team will be aiming for much-needed consistency when it opens its bid for an elusive ICC trophy with T20 World Cup opener against defending champions Australia here on Friday. Inconsistency has plagued India for a long time and a classic example was ir performance in recently held tri-series in Australia where y reached final. y won and lost a game against more accomplished England and Australia before losing to mighty hosts, who have won T20 World Cup a record four times out of six editions held so far.

India Women begin elusive trophy search

India' middle and lower-order needs to do a lot better than what it has been doing  to beat likes of Australia and England in kck-out sts, something that has been been ackwledged star opener Smriti Mandhana. team needs to ensure that frequent middle-order collapses are t repeated in showpiece event.  southpaw and 16-year-old Shafali Verma will have to get India off to a flying start more often than t in competition.

Expectations are high from skipper Harmanpreet Kaur, who too has suffered from inconsistency and would like to correct that, beginning with opener against Australia. It remains to be seen if or 16-year-old in squad, Richa Ghosh, gets to play regularly as she made her international debut only in final of tri-series. In bowling department, y have heavily relied on spinners with t many quality pacers to choose from. 

Shikha Pandey, who is often lone pacer in playing eleven full of spinners, has crucial task of providing early breakthroughs.

"As an opening bowler, I'm obviously thinking about early breakthroughs and that doesn't change, said Pandey, India's fifth-highest wicket-taker in T20s.

"In first six, we are trying to take wickets and n it's about containing batters before coming back and bowling best you can in death overs.

"I would say 150 is w a par score in a T20 game, so first six overs batters actually get a lot of freedom and try to hit as many runs as possible," she added. 

squad is expected to reach last four as it had two years ago but growing women's game in India will get a furr fillip only if y go all way.  Long gone are days when women cricketers were a neglected lot and have all facilities at ir disposal. Head coach W V Raman thinks his team is one of title favourites.

"Since (2018 World T20) n re has been a lot of improvement, in terms of fitness, agility on field and ir approach to batting," Raman was quoted as saying in ESPNcricinfo. y take on Australia, who could t have asked for a better build-up to tournament. y finalised ir combinations during tri-series and are backing mselves to triumph at home.  

Squads

Australia: Erin Burns, Nicola Carey, Ashleigh Gardner, Rachael Haynes (vice-capt), Alyssa Healy (wk), Jess Jonassen, Delissa Kimmince, Meg Lanning (capt), Sophie Molineux, Beth Mooney, Ellyse Perry, Megan Schutt, Annabel Surland, Tayla Vlaeminck, Georgia Wareham.

India: Taniya Bhatia (wk), Harleen Deol, Rajeshwari Gayakwad, Richa Ghosh, Harmanpreet Kaur (capt), Veda Krishnamurthy, Smriti Mandhana, Shikha Pandey, Arundhati Reddy, Jemimah Rodrigues, Deepti Sharma, Pooja Vastrakar, Shafali Verma, Poonam Yadav, Radha Yadav.