Australia bowl opt to bowl; debuts for Anjali Sarvani, Kim Garth

Posted By on December 9, 2022

Toss Australia chose to bowl vs India

Australia won the toss and opted to bowl in the first of the five-match women’s T20I series against India, in Mumbai on Friday.

With the injured fast-bowling allrounder Pooja Vastrakar out of the series, India handed Railways left-arm seamer Anjali Sarvani an international debut. Sarvani was the leading wicket-taker in the Inter-State Women’s T20s, with 17 strikes at an average of 5.70 and an economy rate of 3.34.

Devika Vaidya, who returned to the India squad eight years after featuring in her only T20I, was also included in the XI. Radha Yadav and Deepti Sharma will be the two spinners while Renuka Singh Thakur, Meghna Singh and Sarvani will form the pace attack. Vaidya, who is primarily a batter, can also chip in with her legspin.

Kim Garth, the former Ireland allrounder, made her international debut for Australia. She has played 34 ODIs and 51 T20Is for Ireland, taking a combined 65 wickets and scoring 1210 runs. Allrounder Ellyse Perry, who last played a T20I last October, and Annabel Sutherland will share the pace-bowling duties with Meghan Schutt.

With their regular captain Meg Lanning yet to return from her indefinite break and Rachael Haynes announcing retirement, senior wicketkeeper-batter Alyssa Healy will be leading the visitors for the first time.

Meanwhile, India will be without a head coach for this series, after Ramesh Powar was returned to his role as spin-bowling coach at the National Cricket Academy (NCA). The team’s support staff will be headed by former India batter Hrishikesh Kanitkar, who will also be the side’s batting coach.

India: 1 Smriti Mandhana, 2 Shafali Verma, 3 Jemimah Rodrigues, 4 Harmanpreet Kaur (capt), 5 Devika Vaidya, 6 Richa Gosh (wk), 7 Deepti Sharma, 8 Radha Yadav, 9 Anjali Sarvani, 10 Meghna Singh, 11 Renuka Singh Thakur

Australia: 1 Alyssa Healy (capt, wk), 2 Beth Mooney, 3 Tahlia McGrath, 4 Ashleigh Gardner, 5 Ellyse Perry, 6 Grace Harris, 7 Annabel Sutherland, 8 Jess Jonassen, 9 Alana King, 10 Kim Garth, 11 Megan Schutt

Srinidhi Ramanujam is a sub-editor with ESPNcricinfo

Source: ESPN Crickinfo

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