India, led by Harmanpreet Kaur, won the toss and chose to field first against England, headed by Heather Knight, in the opening Twenty20 International of the three-game series on Wednesday at Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai. To get off to an incredible start, both India and England will be hoping to win the opening game of the series. The two teams have faced off 27 times, with England’s ladies winning 20 of the matches and India’s seven.
“We’re going to bowl first. We want to put pressure on their batters because it’s the first game, and sometimes it’s very difficult to know what a good score is. Also, our team is very confident in chasing. Shreyanka and Saika are playing their first games today. We just want to continue playing good cricket at Mumbai,” Kaur said at the toss. “We would’ve bowled first too. We had a couple of days to acclimatize. We’re looking to build on the things we’ve done in the past year. We did well in the English summer earlier and showed a lot of intent. Hoping for a big crowd today and hoping to do well,” Knight said.
The following players make up the India Women’s playing XI: Smriti Mandhana, Jemimah Rodrigues, Shafali Verma, Harmanpreet Kaur (C), Richa Ghosh (Wk), Deepti Sharma, Shreyanka Patil, Kanika Ahuja, Pooja Vastrakar, Renuka Thakur Singh, and Saika Ishaque. Danielle Wyatt, Sophia Dunkley, Alice Capsey, Nat Sciver-Brunt, Heather Knight (C), Amy Jones (Wk), Freya Kemp, Sophie Ecclestone, Sarah Glenn, Lauren Bell, and Mahika Gaur are the members of the England Women’s playing eleven.
