KUALA LUMPUR: India will meet arch-rivals Pakistan on October 7 in the Women’s T20 Asia Cup, scheduled to begin in Bangladesh’s Sylhet from next month, the Asian Cricket Council announced Tuesday.
Seven teams will take part in the 15-day tournament, starting on October 1.
The tournament will be held in a round robin format with the top four teams qualifying for the semifinals.
The teams playing in the tournament are India, Pakistan, hosts Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, UAE, Thailand and Malaysia. Afghanistan doesn’t have a women’s team since the Taliban took over.
They next play Malaysia (October 3) and UAE (October 4) on successive days before taking on Pakistan.
India play hosts Bangladesh on October 8 and the round robin game against minnows Thailand is on October 10.
The Harmanpreet Kaur-led side will play six league games in 10 days before the probable semifinals on either october 11 or 13th.
The final is slated for October 15.
ACC president Jay Shah stated, “For the first time in the history, 7 women’s teams will be participating in a complete round robin format which we anticipate will be a great boost to the ACC associate teams. We are also very pleased to note that the tournament will be conducted in line with ACC’s vision for women’s cricket.
“The ACC, with this vision in mind, is constantly striving toward being more inclusive. The 2022 edition of the Women’s Asia Cup will therefore see more embedded female participation. For the first time ever, an ACC tournament will see an all-female presence on the playing field, with the women’s tournament being slated to have only female umpires and female match referees. As an organization, we hope to continue to take steps to strengthen the sport by highlighting female talent in every avenue.”
India’s squad: Harmanpreet Kaur (Captain), Smriti Mandhana (vice-captain), Deepti Sharma, Shafali Verma, Jemimah Rodrigues, Sabbineni Meghana, Richa Ghosh (wicket-keeper), Sneh Rana, Dayalan Hemalatha, Meghna Singh, Renuka Thakur, Pooja Vastrakar, Rajeshwari Gayakwad, Radha Yadav, K.P. Navgire
Standby players: Taniyaa Sapna Bhatia, Simran Dil Bahadur.
