India’s ODI captain Mithali Raj on Tuesday in an interview with Press Trust of India announced that she is available to play T20I games for the upcoming South Africa women’s tour, however, she has not yet decided about her commitments for the Women’s T20 World Cup to be played next year in Australia.
The 36-year old Mithali Raj showed interest in continuing 50-over games and shall be available for the World Cup in 2021.
As per the sources, it has been learned that selectors will speak to Mithali Raj about her T20 commitments and declare the squad for South Africa women’s tour on 5th September 2019.
Team India has lost all 6 T20 games played recently in the past and therefore T20I squad remains a big area of concern. With hardly 6 months left for the T20 World Cup 2020, selectors have a huge task of fixing this void and getting Team India back on track.
“I am definitely available for the T20 series next month but, at the moment, haven’t really thought about the T20 World Cup. I usually take it series by series,” the Indian women’s cricket great told PTI when asked about his plans for the shortest format.
“Mithali has been a great of the game but she needs to decide soon on her T20 career. The T20 World Cup is six months away and the selectors need to try out a few players. And for that, they also need to know what Mithali’s plans are. She is also not an automatic pick in the eleven,” a BCCI official said.
“As a team, we still have a lot to catch up on the T20 format but we do have youngsters coming in and with the exposure of T20 leagues around the world they will get more experience and mature faster,” Mithali Raj said.
“Genetically we can’t be like other teams but we can be smarter in our planning and shot selection. We worked very hard on our fitness in the recent camp in Bangalore and you can see the girls are much fitter on the ground and that reflects in their drills,” added Mithali.
Read the complete article on FirstPost here
Loves all things female cricket