Women's T20 World Cup 2023: The Indian team led by Harmanpreet Kaur has started their World Cup campaign with a thumping victory over arch-rivals Pakistan. India were defeated by the mighty Aussies in the finals of the 2020 edition of the Women's T20 World Cup and this time around they will hope to cross the final hurdle and clinch the World Cup trophy. The U-19 women's team under the leadership of Shafali Verma won the T20 World Cup and Harmanpreet Kaur will look to repeat the same feat.
Just like the men's team, the Indian women's team also defeated Pakistan in their first World Cup encounter and started their World Cup on a high note. Riding high on Jemimah Rodrigues' knock, India defeated Pakistan by 7 wickets. Rodrigues played an innings of 53 runs off 38 deliveries. India missed the services of Smriti Mandhana in the opening game but it did not dampen the spirits of 'women in blue'. India are scheduled to play their next match against West Indies and they are hopeful that Mandhana will recover and face the Caribbean team. Mandhana was ruled out of the first game due to a finger injury.
Troy Cooley, India's bowling coach said:
Hopefully, she'll be back, she's been working extremely hard and we'll assess her condition pretty soon. She did everything that needed to be done and from our perspective, we'll have a look at how she pulls up. We are pretty confident that she is going to get through the session and hopefully regain full fitness before the next match.
As a precautionary measure, Mandhana missed India's second warm-up game, but stand-in coach Hrishikesh Kanitkar had confirmed that Mandhana had no fracture. Things are looking bright for Mandhana as far as the inaugural WPL (Women's Premier League) is concerned. The Royal Challengers Bangalore franchise roped in Mandhana for INR 3.4 crore (USD 415,000 approx).
