The Indian team is not going into the Women’s T20 World Cup 2026 with a lot of wins under their belt. First, they lost a series to South Africa 1-4, and then to England 1-2. Post that, come the warm-ups, they did beat the West Indies, but again Harmanpreet Kaur’s team lost to England by 5 runs.
India not in best of form before Women’s T20 World Cup
Despite that, and the heavy weight of expectations, Harman has assured of an aggressive approach by the team, as they take on arch-rivals Pakistan in their tournament opener, on Sunday in Birmingham. “These two practice games have given us a lot of confidence. And even today, even though we lost the game, Richa’s batting was a big positive for us.
“That’s a big belief that if we stay on the pitch, we can turn the game anytime,” Harmanpreet said. Just to go back to the England warm-up encounter, the Indian batting collapsed, there were no real partnerships, except for a whirlwind innings of 68 of 36 by Richa Ghosh. Skipper Harman acknowledged that fact, but also praised the keeper-batter.
Harmanpreet Kaur speaks of ‘confidence’
“I think it’s about partnerships and I think we missed them. Only Richa played a blinder. In T20 cricket, you need a few partnerships in the middle, which we missed today, but it’s good to see how Richa batted,” she said.
If one has to give fair assessment of the Indian team, there are many chinks for now. The pace attack is brittle, with Renuka Thakur, Kranti Gaud and Arundhati Reddy going in and out of form too often. Among them, they have a youngster Nandni Sharma, who doesn’t have a lot of matches behind her back.
Then, not to forget, ours has to be one of the worst catching team’s in the competition. At least that was the case in the World Cup 2025, that we won. There, the team dropped 18 catches, whereas their catching efficiency was only 66%.
India squad for Women’s T20 World Cup: Harmanpreet Kaur (c), Smriti Mandhana, Shafali Verma, Jemimah Rodrigues, Bharti Fulmali, Deepti Sharma, Richa Ghosh, Shree Charani, Yastika Bhatia, Nandani Sharma, Arundhati Reddy, Renuka Singh, Kranti Gaud, Shreyanka Patil, Radha Yadav.
Cricket
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