Chennai, July 4: Indian women’s team will be eager to use the three-match T20I series against South Africa, beginning here from Friday, as a testbed to finetune its strategies before hitting the road to the Asia Cup and the T20 World Cup.
In fact, this is India’s last white ball bilateral series ahead of the Asia Cup in Sri Lanka from July 19 and the ICC showpiece in Bangladesh from October 4.
In that context, the Harmanpreet Kaur-led side will leave no stone unturned in their effort to embark for those big events in the best possible frame of mind.
They have displayed signs of it too in the preceding three-match ODI series in Bengaluru and in the one-off Test here.
The relentless India have won all those assignments despite the Proteas creating pockets of fight.
Since 2023, India have featured in seven T20I series, winning three of them and losing four. They would certainly want to bridge that gap, however narrow it might be.
India will take consolation from the form of their players in the first two legs of this series.
In the ODIs, vice-captain and star batter Smriti Mandhana shone brightly with two hundreds and a fifty in three matches, while Harmanpreet found her feet with a hundred in the final ODI.
The only jarring note of that triumphant run might have been the shoddy form of opener Shafali Verma but she allayed the concerns with a fiery double hundred, the quickest in women’s cricket, in the one-off Test here.
Jemimah Rodrigues and Richa Ghosh too have shown sparks of regaining their touch, and these batters occupy the first five places in India’s run-makers’ list in the shortest format.
So, the team management will eye a flawless outing from this quintet against South Africa, who are coming off a less than satisfactory outing against the Lankans at home in the T20Is. (PTI)
