India Call-up 15-year-old Shafali Verma For South Africa T20Is

India women’s team has named two teenagers in their 15-member squad for the upcoming T20I series against South Africa. Uncapped 15-year old Shafali Verma has received her maiden international call-up while the other teenager is 19-year-old allrounder Pooja Vastrakar, who debuted in 2018. Harmanpreet Kaur will lead the side in the series which gets underway on September 24 in Surat.

The team will be without their veteran star Mithali Raj who retired from T20Is earlier this week. Mithali will continue to lead the ODI squad. India have recalled D Hemalatha for the ODI series against the visitors.

Shafali Verma impressed in the Women’s T20 challenge in May which eventually paved the way for her maiden senior call-up. She had previously done well in the domestic circuit with Haryana during the 2018-19 senior women’s inter-state T20 tournament, making 186 runs in six innings at a strike rate of 187.87. She had also notched up the highest score in the tournament after blasting 128 from just 56 balls against Nagaland.

On the other hand. Vastrakar will be looking to hit the ground running in her first appearance for India since June 2018. The seam-bowling allrounder scores at a rate of 137.09 and has taken 12 wickets at 18.50 in 11 T20Is.

Talking about the ODIs, the series will start from October 9 in Vadodara. India have dropped out-of-form Mona Meshram. She registered ducks in both her innings against England earlier this year and had also performed poorly in last year’s Asia Cup. She has been replaced by Hemalatha. There was no place in the squad for Veda Krishnamurthy too although she retained her place in T20Is.

India squad for T20Is:

Harmanpreet Kaur (captain), Smriti Mandhana (vice-captain), Jemimah Rodrigues, Deepti Sharma, Taniya Bhatia (wicketkeeper), Poonam Yadav, Shikha Pandey, Arundhati Reddy, Pooja Vastrakar, Radha Yadav, Veda Krishnamurthy, Harleen Deol, Anuja Patil, Shafali Verma, Mansi Joshi

India squad for ODIs:

Mithali Raj (captain), Jemimah Rodrigues, Harmanpreet Kaur (vice-captain), Punam Raut, Smriti Mandhana, Deepti Sharma, Taniya Bhatia (wicketkeeper), Jhulan Goswami, Shikha Pandey, Mansi Joshi, Ekta Bisht, Poonam Yadav, D Hemalatha, Rajeshwari Gayakwad, Priya Punia