Last year, the Women’s T20 Challenge was played among three teams over six days at Sharjah. With Jio coming on board as title sponsor and Dream 11, Tata Altroz, Paytm, and CEAT extending their support, the tournament garnered popularity and viewership.
This year the Women’s T20 Challenge will be underway within a couple of weeks or so and will be played alongside the IPL. Talks and discussions about whether to have one more team in the tournament have taken the internet by storm as the fans and cricket pundits are voicing their opinions on social media.
There are mixed thoughts as one set of people do not feel the need to add another team citing a lack of quality players, while the other set is craving to have one additional team in the mix.
In this article, we will look to address the issue of the availability of quality players. But before that here is a quick look at the Indian players that featured in last year’s Women’s T20 Challenge:
- Harmanpreet Kaur
- Jemimah Rodrigues
- Priya Punia
- Anuja Patil
- Radha Yadav
- Taniya Bhatia
- Poonam Yadav
- Arundhati Reddy
- Pooja Vastrakar
- Ayushi Soni
- Muskan Malik
- Smriti Mandhana
- Deepti Sharma
- Punam Raut
- Richa Ghosh
- Dayalan Hemalatha
- Nuzhat Parween
- Rajeshwari Gayakwad
- Harleen Deol
- Jhulan Goswami
- Simra Bahadur
- Kashvee Gautam
- Mithali Raj
- Veda Krishnamurthy
- Shafali Verma
- Sushma Verma
- Ekta Bisht
- Shikha Pandey
- Devika Vaidya
- Sushree Dibyadarshini
- Manali Dakshini
- Murali Anagha
- Meghna Singh
11 out of 15 players from each team were Indian while the remaining four were foreign. On conservative grounds and owing to the pandemic-like situation, if we assume that the Women’s T20 Challenge will be played only by the Indian players this year, then we would require a pool of 60 players if we want to have four teams.
Also Read: Why is it the right time to have 4 Team Women’s IPL ?
Since we already have 33 players, the question is of the remaining 27, to make it a total of 60 players, that is 15 per side.
Based on the on-going senior women’s one-day tournament and past domestic T20 fixtures, we have picked up 27 players, who are proficient and have the ability to play at the highest level. Here is the list of 27 players that ensures that we have enough bench strength and a 4 Team Women’s T20 Challenge is very much possible.
| Sr. No. | Player | State | Proficiency |
| 1 | Divya Gnanananda | Karnataka | Batting |
| 2 | Sarika Koli | Sikkim | All-rounder |
| 3 | Bhakti Tamore | Pondicherry | Batting |
| 4 | Rinki Rajak | Sikkim | Batting |
| 5 | Ruchita Buley | Mizoram | All-rounder |
| 6 | Sayali Satghare | Mumbai | Bowling |
| 7 | Minnu Mani | Kerala | All-rounder |
| 8 | Mansi Joshi | India player | Bowling |
| 9 | MD Thirushkamini | Railways | Batting |
| 10 | Niranjana Nagarajan | Tamil Nadu | All-rounder |
| 11 | Sneh Rana | Railways | Bowling |
| 12 | Amruta Saran | Pondicherry | Bowling |
| 13 | Nupur Kohale | Vidarbha | Bowling |
| 14 | Lalita Sharma | Delhi | Bowling |
| 15 | Kanika Ahuja | Punjab | Bowling |
| 16 | Priti Yadav | Madhya Pradesh | Bowling |
| 17 | Madhusmita Behera | Odisha | Bowling |
| 18 | Sajana S | Karnataka | Bowling |
| 19 | Indrani Roy | Jharkhand | Batting |
| 20 | Bhawna Ohlan | Haryana | Batting |
| 21 | P P Paul | West Bengal | Batting |
| 22 | C H Jhansi Lakshmi | Andhra Pradesh | Batting |
| 23 | Bharati Fulmali | Vidarbha | Batting |
| 24 | S Shubha | Karnataka | Batting |
| 25 | Mamtha Kanojia | Hyderabad | Batting |
| 26 | S Meghana | Railways | Batting |
| 27 | Amanjot Kaur | Chandigarh | Batting |
Through this article, we take the opportunity to invite you to contribute your 27 players, who according to you can make it to the Women’s T20 Challenge this year.
The views and suggestions expressed in the article are of the author and not the organization, its affiliates, or employees.
I am a former cricketer having represented Mumbai University at All India University level. I was a part of MCA probables for the U-19 and U-23 age group. I have been an avid cricket writer for the last five years. Currently I am pursuing my Ph.D from IIT Bombay.
