THE 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham are only a matter of weeks away, and Cricket is making its triumphant return to the schedule at these Games. In preparation, we will be taking a look at each of the competing nations to see how they stack up.

Today, we take a look at India.

After the way the last T20 World Cup panned out, India will be out to make a statement at the Commonwealth Games.

They had a stellar group stage of the last T20 World Cup, finishing undefeated, including beating the eventual champions Australia.

After being the beneficiary of a washout in the semi, things did not go to plan for the Indians in the final, losing comfortably to the Australians.

But that was then, and this is now, and some of India’s squad for these games have improved significantly since back then.

India’s batters in particular are some of the best in the world, including Harmanpreet Kaur, Smriti Mandhana and Shafali Verma.

Moving down the order and Jemimah Rodrigues is a strong middle order batter that can bowl, while Pooja Vastrakar is a dangerous bowler to keep an eye on.

In terms of India’s schedule, they are arguably in the easier pool at these Games, with two of their three opponents they have recent history against.

There is plenty of recent T20 history between the Indians and the Australians.

After the mixed bag of results at the most recent T20 World Cup, the Indians played the Aussies in Australia in a three match series as part of a larger multi format series. Although India did not win any of the T20s, they did not lose by that much.

Although India and Pakistan do not have recent post World Cup history in the T20 format, they did play each other in the last One Day World Cup so although it is a different format, many of the same players no doubt played in both series. Still, two rivals as fierce as these neighbours are will always be a fierce game no matter how much recent history there is.

The real unknown factor in all of this is the Barbadians. They normally compete as the larger West Indies collective so there may be many new faces for the Indians, but two faces in that side they will definitely recognise are Deandra Dottin and Hayley Matthews, who are two of the most dangerous T20 batters in the world.

So, will the Indians be able to bounce back then from the heartbreak of the last World Cup and win a historic medal? Time will tell.

Indian Squad

Harmanpreet Kaur, Smriti Mandhana, Shafali Verma, Sabbhineni Meghana, Taniyaa Bhatia (wk), Yastika Bhatia (wk), Deepti Sharma, Rajeshari Gayakwad, Pooja Vastrakar, Meghna Singh, Renuka Thakur, Jemimah Rodrigues, Radha Yadav, Harleen Deol, Sneh Rana

India’s Schedule

Friday 29 July – Australia
Sunday 31 July – Pakistan
Wednesday 3 August – Barbados