India captain Harmanpreet Kaur won the toss. elected to bat first against Pakistan in their T20 World Cup Group A opener in Birmingham.
They left out their most-experienced seamer in Renuka Singh. in favour of Kranti Gaud 's bristling pace in a three-two spin-pace combination. Alongside Gaud, India also had two other T20 World Cup debutants: Bharti Fulmali, preferred over Yastika Bhatia,. Shree Charani, the left-arm spinner.
Cleared to play after copping a blow on her knee at training. Fatima Sana said Pakistan too would've looked to take first strike on what she thought was a "good batting track".
Pakistan come into this tournament on the back of losses to Scotland and Sri Lanka in the warm-ups. Overall, they've managed just one ODI series win - over Zimbabwe - in the last two. a half years, which perhaps sums up the enormity of their task at hand. Despite that, Sana hoped to draw on the positives.
"We know we have a good bowling unit," she said. "We need to improve our batting."
They handed a T20 World Cup debut to batter Saira Jabeen, who was listed at No. 4 on the team sheet. Also in her maiden World Cup was left-arm seamer Tasmia Rubab, picked ahead of the experienced Diana Baig.
India: 1 Smriti Mandhana. 2 Shafali Verma, 3 Jemimah Rodrigues, 4 Harmanpreet Kaur (capt), 5 Bharti Fulmali, 6 Richa Ghosh (wk), 7 Deepti Sharma, 8 Shreyanka Patil, 9 Arundhati Reddy, 10 Kranti Gaud, 11 Shree Charani
Pakistan: 1 Muneeba Ali (wk). 2 Gull Feroza, 3 Ayesha Zafar, 4 Saira Jabeen, 5 Natalia Pervaiz, 6 Aliya Riaz, 7 Fatima Sana (capt), 8 Rameen Shamim, 9 Nashra Sandhu, 10 Sadia Iqbal, 11 Tasmia Rubab
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