Toss India choose to bat vs Pakistan

India captain Harmanpreet Kaur won the toss and elected to bat first against Pakistan in their T20 World Cup Group A opener in Birmingham.

They left out their most-experienced seamer in Renuka Singh, in favour of Kranti Gaud‘s bristling pace in a three-two spin-pace combination. Alongside Gaud, India also had two other T20 World Cup debutants: Bharti Fulmali, preferred over Yastika Bhatia, and Shree Charani, the left-arm spinner.

Cleared to play after copping a blow on her knee at training, Fatima Sana said Pakistan too would’ve looked to take first strike on what she thought was a “good batting track”.

Pakistan come into this tournament on the back of losses to Scotland and Sri Lanka in the warm-ups. Overall, they’ve managed just one ODI series win – over Zimbabwe – in the last two and a half years, which perhaps sums up the enormity of their task at hand. Despite that, Sana hoped to draw on the positives.

“We know we have a good bowling unit,” she said. “We need to improve our batting.”

They handed a T20 World Cup debut to batter Saira Jabeen, who was listed at No. 4 on the team sheet. Also in her maiden World Cup was left-arm seamer Tasmia Rubab, picked ahead of the experienced Diana Baig.

India: 1 Smriti Mandhana, 2 Shafali Verma, 3 Jemimah Rodrigues, 4 Harmanpreet Kaur (capt), 5 Bharti Fulmali, 6 Richa Ghosh (wk), 7 Deepti Sharma, 8 Shreyanka Patil, 9 Arundhati Reddy, 10 Kranti Gaud, 11 Shree Charani

Pakistan: 1 Muneeba Ali (wk), 2 Gull Feroza, 3 Ayesha Zafar, 4 Saira Jabeen, 5 Natalia Pervaiz, 6 Aliya Riaz, 7 Fatima Sana (capt), 8 Rameen Shamim, 9 Nashra Sandhu, 10 Sadia Iqbal, 11 Tasmia Rubab