Mithali Retains Spot in T20 Squad for New Zealand Series, Veda Dropped

New Delhi: After being left out of the Indian playing XI in the World T20 semifinal against England last month in Antigua, a decision that set off a wave of controversy, Mithali Raj has retained her place in the Indian T20 squad under skipper Harmanpreet Kaur for the upcoming tour of New Zealand.

Mithali will also continue to captain the ODI squad where Harmanpreet continues to be her deputy.

The squad for the T20Is just had one change from the 2018 Women’s World T20 squad with Delhi’s Priya Punia replacing an out-of-form Veda Krishnamurthy.

The selection meeting was held in the Capital with BCCI secretary Amitabh Chaudhary and CEO Rahul Johri presiding over the two-hour long meeting. Johri was the representative of the Committee of Administrators (CoA) at the selection meeting.

The meeting got underway around 12.15pm with Mithali only arriving at the hotel half an hour later. With the meeting still underway, Mithali proceeded to the coffee shop and only joined in for 15 minutes during which the ODI team was selected.

“There was no debate about Mithali’s position or captaincy during the meeting. She is still in good form in the T20 format. Mithali has only said that she is not going to play in the next T20 World Cup but she hasn’t retired from the format yet. So we had no hesitation in selecting her,” one of the selectors told CricketNext.

“Veda was dropped purely on form and replaced by Priya Punia for the T20s,” she added.

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Mithali’s omission from the semifinal loss set the ball rolling for the most tumultuous times in Indian women’s cricket which led to interim coach Ramesh Powar being replaced by WV Raman on Thursday (December 20) night.

Mithali’s much-publicised spat with Powar exposed divisions within the team as well, with Harmanpreet and Mandhana coming out in support of the interim coach.

That has led to divisions in CoA as well, with Diana Edulji backing Powar and openly questioning the process to appoint former India opener Raman as the new coach.

India are scheduled to play three ODIs and as many T20Is against New Zealand starting January 24. The three T20Is will be double-headers along with the men's T20Is in February.

ODI Squad: Mithali Raj (Captain), Harmanpreet Kaur, Jemima Rodrigues, Smriti Mandhana, Punam Raut, Deepti Sharma, Tanya Bhatia, D Hemlata, Mona Mesharam, Ekta Bisht, Punam Yadav, Rajeshwari Gaekwad, Jhulan Goswami, Mansi Joshi and Shikha Pandey

T20 Squad: Harmanpreet Kaur (Captain), Smriti Mandhana, Mithali Raj, Deepti Sharma, Jemima Rodrigues, Anuja Patil, D Hemlata, Mansi Joshi, Shikha Pandey, Tanya Bhatia, Poonam Yadav, Ekta Bisht, Radha Yadav, Arundhati Reddy and Priya Punia