Mithali, Harmanpreet remain ODI, T20 captains; Veda Krishnamurthy dropped

India will play three ODIs in New Zealand beginning January 24 as part of the ICC Women’s Championship before playing three T20 Internationals.

Indian women’s cricket ODI team captain Mithali Raj and T20 skipper Harmanpreet Kaur.

She may have been alleged of trying to abandon the squad mid-way through last month’s World Twenty20 campaign, but the ugly spat with then coach Ramesh Powar, which also saw T20 captain Harmanpreet Kaur and her deputy Smriti Mandhana getting involved, hasn’t gone against the veteran batter.

On Friday, the national women’s selection committee headed by Hemlata Kala not only retained Mithali as the ODI captain but also persisted with her in the Twenty20 squad for India women’s tour to New Zealand, starting January 24.

It is understood that Mithali attended the selection committee in person while Harmanpreet, who is in Australia for the women’s Big Bash League, joined via video-conferencing. Interestingly, W.V. Raman, who was appointed head coach a day earlier, wasn’t involved in the meeting.

While Mithali was retained, the World T20 squad that bowed out in the semifinals, saw two changes. Batter Devika Vaidya was unavailable due to an illness while finisher Veda Krishnamurthy has been dropped due to a string of poor scores. The duo was replaced by Priya Punia and Shikha Pandey.

Female assistant coach recommended

Meanwhile, the three-member ad-hoc panel comprising Kapil Dev, Aunshuman Gaekwad and Shantha Rangaswamy has recommended a female assistant coach to help out new coach Raman.

After conducting the interviews of the 10 shortlisted candidates here on Thursday, only one of whom was a female, the panel has suggested a female assistant coach to be with the team all the time, primarily as a comforting factor for women cricketers.

Raman, meanwhile, has asked for a bowling coach to be added to the coaching staff, along with Biju George who is the fielding coach since last year.

The squads:

ODIs:  Mithali Raj (Capt.), Harmanpreet Kaur (Vice-capt.), Smriti Mandhana, Jemimah Rodrigues, Punam Raut, Deepti Sharma, D. Hemalatha, Taniya Bhatia (w.k.), Mona Meshram, Ekta Bisht, Poonam Yadav, Rajeshwari Gayakwad, Jhulan Goswami, Mansi Joshi, Shikha Pandey.

T20I:  Harmanpreet (Capt.), Smriti (Vice-capt.), Mithali, Deepti, Jemimah, Anuja Patil, Hemalatha, Mansi, Shikha, Taniya Bhatia (w.k.), Poonam Yadav, Ekta Bisht, Radha Yadav, Arundhati Reddy, Priya Punia.