Perplexing selection musical chairs continues with India’s squad for Asian Games

The Indian women’s cricket squad for the 19th Asian Games Hangzhou 2022 was announced on Friday. As baffling as the timing of the squad announcement (10.38 PM) was, which is unfortunately fast becoming the norm with Indian cricket, the changes to the squad, the exclusions and the inclusions were equally perplexing.

In agony, however, if you think looking towards BCCI could bring you some relief, you would be mistaken.

Asian Games may be low on priority on BCCI’s radar but it still remains a continental showpiece that gives Women in Blue a chance to win a gold medal for India. This fact though is not enough to compel the richest cricket board in the world to hold a press conference and explain exactly what is going on with the selection.

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Not to forget, the BCCI release also doesn’t have anything on who could coach the team during the Asian Games.

The deadline for the applications the board invited for the position of head coach of the India women’s team ended on 10 May and despite media reports indicating that Amol Muzumdar is set to replace Ramesh Powar, who was removed from his post in December last year, Nooshin Al Khadeer is the interim coach in the ongoing tour of Bangladesh.

Will she be the coach at Asian games or will Muzumdar handle that role?

Again, don’t bother looking at the BCCI.

Coming to the squad, the 18-member squad for T20Is, which would also be the format at Asian Games, against Bangladesh saw some major surprises.

Richa Ghosh, the explosive keeper-batter who was India’s second-highest run-getter in the semi-final run at the 2023 T20 World Cup, was dropped from the squad. Yastika Bhatia and Uma Chetry were the two wicket-keepers with the former being the No 1 choice.

Yastika is now completely out of the picture for Asian Games. She didn’t even find a place in the standby list for Asian Games. It was suggested that Richa’s fitness was a reason for her exclusion from the Bangladesh tour. Surprisingly she is now in favour and Yastika, who is the No 1 in Bangladesh, is not required at all.

Adding more mystery to the selection is the fact that back-up Uma Chetry has retained her place.

Has Yastika fallen behind Uma in the pecking order for the keepers?

The atrocity doesn’t end there.

Maverick all-rounder Pooja Vastrakar who is part of both T20Is and ODIs in Bangladesh has been relegated to reserves for Asian games.

What really is the basis of this selection?

Forget the fact that Vastrakar can strike at a quicker rate than most of her counterparts and is also a hit-the-deck pacer who can swing the ball.

In Bangladesh T20Is, she gave away 16 runs for one wicket in four overs in the first match. Bowled one over for 10 runs in the second and didn’t get the ball in the third T20I. She scored 7 not out and 2 from two innings.

None of these were great performances but in a series which India won 2-1, a lot wasn’t great for the visitors. Pacers had little to no support from the pitch and she failed once in batting.

Vastrakar is the same player who hit a blistering 67 off 59 in the 2022 ODI World Cup and stitched a 122-run seventh-wicket partnership with Sneh Rana (53 not out) to save India the blushes against Pakistan.

This brings us to the point that Rana has also been dropped to the standby list without playing a T20I in Bangladesh.

Experienced pacer and swing bowler Shikha Pandey continues to be out despite a decent T20 World Cup 2023 where she took three wickets and a productive Women’s Premier League where she had 10 wickets in nine matches as Delhi Capitals reached the final.

Do you want more?

Pacer Monica Patel was called up to the Indian team for the first time since 2021 and now she is out without playing a game. Meghna Singh, who also was not picked in WPL, was sent to Bangladesh but has now been removed from the Asian Games squad.

Batter Sabbhineni Meghana has been wiped out from the squad without a game in Bangladesh or a place in the reserves list.

Apart from Ghosh, fast bowler Titas Sadhu and all-rounder Kanika Ahuja have been called up for the Asian Games. Sadhu took six wickets in India’s U-19 T20 World Cup win earlier this year, while Ahuja took four wickets with her off-spin and scored 98 at a strike rate of 132.43 in the WPL for Royal Challengers Bangalore.

Also, making a return is experienced left-arm spinner, Rajeshwari Gayakwad, which is somewhat understandable. Against Bangladesh, the selectors probably wanted to try out youngsters like Minu Manni and Anusha Bareddy as they prepare a squad for the T20 World Cup 2024 and now with the imminency of the Asian Games, want to bring back an experienced tweaker.

All of this, however, is an educated guess. The reality could be far from it. And there’s no way to verify it as BCCI wants to play secret games.

In total seven players from the Bangladesh tour T20I squad have been dropped and four new players have been added; which is understandable to an extent because the strength has been trimmed down to 15 from 18. But it’s the personnel picked and dropped that baffles.

Everything looks arbitrary at the moment. There’s no pattern, no logic and no consistency. One can’t blame us for being harsh because the dumbfoundedness has been derived from a lack of communication and accountability.

More importantly, such inconsistency will only hurt the team going forward.

India’s T20I squad for Asian Games: Harmanpreet Kaur (C), Smriti Mandhana (VC), Shafali Verma, Jemimah Rodrigues, Deepti Sharma, Richa Ghosh (wk), Amanjot Kaur, Devika Vaidya, Anjali Sarvani, Titas Sadhu, Rajeshwari Gayakwad, Minnu Mani, Kanika Ahuja, Uma Chetry (wk), Anusha Bareddy

Standby list of players: Harleen Deol, Kashvee Gautam, Sneh Rana, Saika Ishaque, Pooja Vastrakar

India’s T20I squad for Bangladesh tour: Harmanpreet Kaur (C), Smriti Mandhana (VC), Deepti Sharma, Shafali Verma, Jemimah Rodrigues, Yastika Bhatia (wk), Harleen Deol, Devika Vaidya, Uma Chetry (wk), Amanjot Kaur, S. Meghana, Pooja Vastrakar, Meghna Singh, Anjali Sarvani, Monica Patel, Rashi Kanojiya, Anusha Bareddy, Minnu Mani

The women’s T20 contest at the Asian Games will be held from 19 September to 8 October 2023 at Zhejiang University of Technology Pingfeng Cricket Field.