THE 2023 ICC Women’s T20 World Cup is just around the corner, and will see 10 teams from across the world battle it out in South Africa to be crowned World Champions for another three years.

In the lead up to the tournament, we here at Rookie Me Central will be previewing the teams one by one, and taking a deep dive into their chances at the upcoming tournament.

India is a real rising force in international women’s cricket, and will be looking for some serious revenge on the Australians this tournament.

At the last T20 World Cup, India was the only ones to beat the Australians all tournament as it had a dominant tournament all the way up to the final where it was humiliated by the Australians on the big stage of the MCG.

Then, at the Commonwealth Games last year it was the Australians who again denied India a tournament win after the Aussies beat the Indians in the Gold Medal Match.

The Indians were also the only team to beat Australia last calendar year, so that will give them at least a little bit of confidence heading into this tournament.

So the question is, do they have the squad this time to break the pattern and finally nab that title?

The squad, once again led by star batter Harmanpreet Kaur, has got a mixture of youth and experience like any good roster should.

The core of the Indian batting power lies with Smriti Mandhana and Jemimah Rodrigues, who are both stellar at the crease and must be dismissed quickly if the opposition want any chance of restricting India to a small total.

In terms of bowlers, Renuka Thakur and Pooja Vastrakar have got vastly different levels of experience but are just as dangerous as each other. 

Like many countries at the senior tournament, India has some players backing up and playing both the senior tournament and the under 19 tournament.

India has two such players, but unlike the other countries, the pair have the chance to become dual world champions in the same year.

Shafali Verma was one of the absolute stars of the Under 19 tournament as she captained the Indians to the title. Meanwhile Richa Ghosh did not quite reach the heights Verma did in the Under 19 tournament but still made a handy contribution.

India Squad

Harmanpreet Kaur (c), Smriti Mandhana, Shafali Verma, Yastika Bhatia, Richa Ghosh, Jemimah Rodrigues, Harleen Deol, Deepti Sharma, Devika Vaidya, Radha Yadav, Renuka Thakur, Anjali Sarvani, Pooja Vastrakar, Rajeshwari Gayakwad, Shikha Pandey

India Fixture (all dates local)

February 12 – Pakistan
February 15 – West Indies
February 18 – England
February 20 – Ireland