India’s tour of England: Shafali, Shikha in all teams; Indrani Roy gets maiden call-up

New Delhi, May 15: In a major development, Shafali Verma and Shikha Pandey have been included in all the three formats for India’s tour of England next month while rookie wicketkeeper-batter Indrani Roy from Jharkhand was rewarded with maiden Test and ODI call-up. However, senior left-arm spinner Rajeshwari Gayakwad missed out as she is recovering from COVID-19 as well as also nursing an injury.

 

 

 

The Neetu David-led selection panel made a course correction with teen batting sensation Shafali Verma and seasoned pacer Shikha Pandey making it to all three squads after their South Africa home series snubs. Meanwhile, Sneh Rana and Indrani were two stellar performers in the National One Day competition and thus got their call-ups.

 

 

The controversial picks of the last time like Monica Patel, C Prathyusha have been dropped from the squad altogether in the team selection meeting which was keenly followed by BCCI president Sourav Ganguly and secretary Jay Shah.

 

 

Indrani was rewarded for her string of scores which included 103 against Chattisgarh, 86 against Karnataka and 49 against Railways in the final. Rana on her part was the ‘Player of the Final’ for her all-round show while representing Indian Railways.

 

As expected Mithali Raj will lead the team for the one-off Test and three ODIs while Harmanpreet Kaur will take over the reins during the three T20 Internationals.

 

 

Test & ODI Squad: Mithali Raj (captain), Smriti Mandhana, Harmanpreet Kaur (vice-captain), Punam Raut, Priya Punia, Deepti Sharma, Jemimah Rodrigues, Shafali Verma, Sneh Rana, Taniya Bhatia (wicket-keeper), Indrani Roy (wicket-keeper), Jhulan Goswami, Shikha Pandey, Pooja Vastrakar, Arundhati Reddy, Poonam Yadav, Ekta Bisht, Radha Yadav.

 

T20I Squad: Harmanpreet Kaur (captain) Smriti Mandhana (vice-captain), Deepti Sharma, Jemimah Rodrigues, Shafali Verma, Richa Ghosh, Harleen Deol, Sneh Rana, Taniya Bhatia (wicket-keeper), Indrani Roy (wicket-keeper), Shikha Pandey, Pooja Vastrakar, Arundhati Reddy, Poonam Yadav, Ekta Bisht, Radha Yadav, Simran Dil Bahadur.