15-year-old Shafali Verma earns maiden India call-up for South Africa series
India will take on South Africa in five T20Is from 14 September to 4 October, with a squad of 15 named for the first three matches. The playing group includes Verma, who impressed in the Women’s T20 Challenger earlier this year for Velocity; she hit 34 off 31 in a win over Trailblazers that led to high praise from her teammate, England’s Danni Wyatt.
“Shafali is going to be a superstar for India probably in a year or so. I think she'll break into India team,” said Wyatt.
"I wish to retire from T20Is to focus my energies on readying myself for the 2021 Women's @cricketworldcup."
— ICC (@ICC) September 3, 2019
Bowing out from the shortest format, @M_Raj03 declares that she still has big ambitions in ODIs.https://t.co/baEixWmRUv
The 20-over squad does not feature Mithali Raj, who announced her retirement from T20I cricket earlier this week. Harmanpreet Kaur will lead the side in their first international assignment since their T20I series against England in March. All of the T20Is will be played in Surat.
Raj remains India’s ODI skipper and will lead the side after the conclusion of the T20I series. All three ODIs will be played in Vadodara from 9-14 October.
ODI squad: Mithali Raj (c), Jemimah Rodrigues, Harmanpreet Kaur, Punam Raut, Smriti Mandhana, Deepti Sharma, Taniya Bhatia (wk), Jhulan Goswami, Shikha Pandey, Mansi Joshi, Ekta Bisht, Poonam Yadav, D Hemalatha, Rajeshwari Gayakwad, Priya Punia
Squad for first three T20Is: Harmanpreet Kaur (c), Smriti Mandhana, Jemimah Rodrigues, Deepti Sharma, Taniya Bhatia (wk), Poonam Yadav, Shikha Pandey, Arundhati Reddy, Pooja Vastrakar, Radha Yadav, Veda Krishnamurthy, Harleen Deol, Anuja Patil, Shafali Verma, Mansi Joshi