Toss India Women opt to bowl vs England Women
India decided to bowl in the first T20I against England in Northampton on Friday, with allrounder Sneh Rana making her first T20I appearance since 2016 and Danni Wyatt back in the mix as opener for the home team.
England made just one change to the XI they fielded in their previous T20I outing, against New Zealand in Wellington in March, with Heather Knight taking back the captaincy from Natalie Sciver as Fran Wilson made her way out. India, too, had their designated T20I captain returning: Harmanpreet Kaur, who missed the T20I series at home against South Africa in March through injury, set her sights on regaining batting form.
"In the short format it's always good to chase, because you have a fair idea and then you can plan accordingly," Kaur said after winning the toss at the County Ground. Knight said she, too, would have opted to field first, but wasn't too upset with having to bat instead. "The stats actually say batting first here is more successful in the men's game, so hopefully we get out there and put a few runs on the board," Knight said.
India retained Richa Ghosh in the keeper-batter role from the third and final T20I in the South Africa series, which India lost 2-1; Taniya Bhatia, who kept wickets for India through the one-off Test and the three ODIs on the ongoing tour of England, was left out. Jemimah Rodrigues, who made 8 and 4 in her two ODI innings against England, was also dropped.
India: 1 Smriti Mandhana, 2 Shafali Verma, 3 Harleen Deol, 4 Harmanpreet Kaur (capt), 5 Deepti Sharma, 6 Sneh Rana, 7 Richa Ghosh (wk), 8 Shikha Pandey, 9 Arundhati Reddy, 10 Radha Yadav, 11 Poonam Yadav
England: 1 Danni Wyatt, 2 Tammy Beaumont, 3 Heather Knight (capt), 4 Nat Sciver, 5 Amy Jones (wk), 6 Sophia Dunkley, 7 Freya Davies 8 Katherine Brunt, 9 Sophie Ecclestone, 10 Sarah Glenn, 11 Maddy Villers
Annesha Ghosh is a sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo. @ghosh_annesha
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