Indian Women’s Cricket is all set for the ODI World Cup which is to begin from 3rd March in New Zealand. It recently announced its squad which will travel to compete in this tournament.
The squad for the ICC Women’s World Cup 2022: Mithali Raj, Harmanpreet Kaur, Smriti Mandhana, Yastika Bhatia, Deepti Sharma, Shefali Verma, Sneha Rana, Pooja Vastrakar, Meghna Singh, Jhulan Goswami, Renuka Singh Thakur, Richa Ghosh (wk), Taniya Bhatia (wk), Rajeshwari Gaikwad, Poonam Yadav.
The team is full of standout performers and one such is 18-year-old Richa Ghosh. This 18-year-old is a powerful right-hand batter and wicketkeeper. At a remarkably young age of 16 years, she was named in the Indian squad for the 2020 ICC women’s T20 World Cup. With players like Jemimah Rodrigues being excluded from the team, Richa Ghosh might be presented with an opportunity to play the role of the power hitter for the team in the ODI World Cup 2022.
“In Indian women’s cricket, after Harmanpreet Kaur, I think only Richa is capable of that stand-and-deliver stuff to clear the grounds. She has that power,” said Shib Shankar Paul, who’s currently the bowling coach of all Bengal squads to Telegraph.
Along with World Cup, She has also been included in the squad for the upcoming series against the Kiwis. India will be playing in only T20 and five ODI matches with New Zealand. Her contribution to the team is not only as a batter but also as a wicket-keeper. Her performances in the matches played against Australia in September where she scored a 32 not out and of 44 along with her good wicket-keeping has been a factor to help her get a position in the squad for the World Cup.
It is due to this performance that she also got a chance to play for Hobart Hurricanes in the Women’s Big Bash League which is a T20 league in Australia. However, she didn’t have a great Big Bash league season where she scored a mere 162 runs in 14 matches at a strike rate of 95.29. Hence it is necessary that she must perform well in the upcoming matches against New Zealand as they will be a major role in her selection for the playing eleven for the World Cup.
The Indian Team has been performing brilliantly in the past few years in the ICC tournaments. Unfortunately, they have not been able to convert their performance into a tournament win yet. In the 2022 edition of the ODI World Cup, the Indian Team will keep their hopes high to finally capitalize and win the Trophy.
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