India will look to take a 1-0 series lead with a win in the 1st T20I against England
Indian women’s team captain Harmanpreet Kaur has been ruled out of the first T20I against England on Saturday in Nottingham as a precautionary measure.
The BCCI confirmed that the 36-year-old had suffered a head injury during the warm-up T20I against England Select XI on Thursday where she scored 28 off 16 balls.
In Harmanpreet’s absence, vice-captain Smriti Mandhana will lead the Indian team.
India had began the tour with two narrow defeats in the warm-up ODI and T20I in Beckenham. Harmanpreet scored 54 off 47 balls in the ODI warm-up game which Indian women lost by 18 runs.
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Harmanpreet is fresh off guiding Mumbai Indians to a second Women’s Premier League (WPL) title followed by India to the Tri-Nation tournament Sri Lanka and South Africa.
She scored 302 runs from 10 matches at a strike rate of 154 in the WPL 2025 and followed it up with 140 runs from four innings in the tri-series victory.
The Indian squad has seen the return of explosive opener Shafali Verma for the five-match T20I series but was left out of the three-match ODI series which will be played on July 16, 19 and 22 in Southampton, Lord’s and Chester-le-Street respectively.
In-form opener Pratika Rawal kept her place in the ODI squad. Sneh Rana, who made a successful comeback with 15 wickets in the tri-series, was also retained in the squad for the England tour.
England, meanwhile, welcomed back star spinner Sophie Ecclestone for the series. Pacer Lauren Filer also made a comeback to the side while senior batter Heather Knight missed out due to a hamstring injury that ruled her out of action for the remainder of the year.
Spinner Sarah Glenn has been left out of the squad led by Mumbai Indians all-rounder Nat Sciver-Brunt.
For the first T20I, India handed T20I debut to left-arm spinner Shree Charani after her bright performances in the warm-up games.
Smriti Mandhana(c), Shafali Verma, Harleen Deol, Jemimah Rodrigues, Richa Ghosh(w), Deepti Sharma, Amanjot Kaur, Sneh Rana, Radha Yadav, Arundhati Reddy, Shree Charani
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