Mithali Raj on Wednesday named as the captain of the Indian women cricket team that will travel to South Africa for a three-match away ODI series next month as part of the ICC Women’s Championship (2017-2020) in February. Harmanpreet Kaur has been named Mithali's deputy as the BCCI announced the 16-member squad for the series beginning on February 5. Young Jemimah Rodrigues has also been included in the squad. While Taniya Bhatia has been included as a backup wicketkeeper.
The ODI series will be followed by a five-match T20I series and the squad for it will be named later. Before the first ODI at Kimberly, the Indian eves team will play a warm-up match in Bloemfontein on February 2.
After returning from the tour of South Africa, the women in blue will host Australia for the three Championship matches. The series against Australia will begin from March 12 followed by two more matches on March 15 and 18 in Baroda. England are also scheduled to join the two teams for a Twenty20 International tri-series in Mumbai.
India Women's ODI squad:
Mithali Raj (Captain), Harmanpreet Kaur (vice-captain), Sushma Verma (wicket-keeper), Ekta Bisht, Smriti Mandhana, Poonam Yadav, Punam Raut, Rajeshwari Gayakwad, Jemimah Rodrigues, Jhulan Goswami, Deepti Sharma, Shikha Pandey, Mona Meshram, Pooja Vastrakar, Veda Krishnamurthy, Taniya Bhatia (wicket-keeper).
