Easy win for India against Pakistan in opener

Mumbai: The women’s T20 World Cup scheduled in Bangladesh is approaching soon. Every move made by the ten teams will be under scanner till the tournament. Traditionally, Bangladesh has been a heaven for the spinners. Take for example the Women’s Asia Cup in 2022. In the tournament, which lasted for 24 fixtures, the top 11 wicket-takers were tweakers before India’s Renuka Singh Thakur made it to the list.

Whenever the teams visited Bangladesh, the question was, how early would bowling captain introduce the spinners? India have followed the pattern in the past so much so that when they toured Bangladesh in 2023, in one of the T20Is, Harmanpreet Kaur employed 19 overs of spin, including seven overs of part-time spin (Jemimah Rodrigues and Shafali Verma).

Times have changed significantly since that series. At least from an Indian point of view, Pooja Vastrakar has made a comeback as an opening bowler in the shortest format. In the latest tour of Bangladesh in May 2024, Vastrakar was not the highest wicket-taker for India, but she and Bangladesh’s teenage pacer, Marufa Akter, were amongst the bowlers with the lowest economy.