CHENNAI: With the U19 Women's T20 Challengers set to begin on November 1 in Goa, it marks the beginning of India's preparation for the U19 Women's T20 World Cup early next year. After the Challengers, a quadrangular U19 T20 tournament featuring India U-19 A, India U-19 B, West Indies and Sri Lanka U-19 teams will take place from November 13 in Visakhapatnam.
The India U19 women's team will play their first-ever youth T20 series against West Indies in Mumbai from November 27. The series will witness teams face each other five times. Between the two series, West Indies and New Zealand U-19 sides will play two T20s in Mumbai from November 22.
The U19 T20 Challengers that begins on November 1 will see 52 players divided into four teams and play against each other once before the top-two sides qualify for the final. Madhya Pradesh's title-winning captain Soumya Tiwari, Karnataka captain Nikki Prasad, Delhi's Shweta Sherawat and Kerala’s Najla CMC will lead the teams in the tournament.
The biggest surprise among the selections was that only three players were picked from Madhya Pradesh, who won the U19 T20 Trophy title. In fact, Vaishnavi Sharma, who finished as leading wicket-taker (23 wickets in eight games), hasn't been selected.
Reacting to the news, Abhilash Khandekar, MPCA president, said he was taken by surprise as well. "Naturally, we were expecting more players in the team considering our u-19 national title winning performance," told this daily.
Meanwhile, Uttar Pradesh, who lost to Madhya Pradesh in the quarterfinal, had eight players in the mix. Bengal and Karnataka had five, Mumbai had four. Andhra, Hyderabad and Uttarakhand had three each from the respective state sides in the squads.
U19 T20 Challengers squads:
Team A: Soumya Tiwari (C) (MPCA), Ishwari Savkar (VC) (Maharashtra), Hrishita Basu (Bengal), Sanika Chalke (Mumbai), Kanishka Thakur (MPCA), Sonia Mendhiya (Haryana), Parshavi Chopra (UPCA), Sonam Yadav (UPCA), Falak Naz (UPCA), Khushbu Kumari (JSCA), Shabnam (Andhra), Yashasvi Katta (Rajasthan), Naini Rajput (MPCA)
Team B: Shweta Sehrawat (C) (DDCA), Titas Sadhu (VC) (Bengal), Hema Roshini (Andhra), Varnika Singh (UP), Rama Dwaraka Kushwah (UP), Raghvi Bisht (Uttarakhand), Nirmiti Rane (Mumbai), Sharvi Save (Mumbai), Mannat Kashyap (Punjab), Yashasri (Hyderabad), Garima Singh (UPCA), Mithila Vinod (KSCA), Nandini Kashyap (Uttarakhand)
Team C: Niki Prasad (C) (KSCA), Chandasi K (VC) (KSCA), Priyadarshni (DDCA), G Trisha (Hyderabad), Sasthi Mondal (Bengal), Bristi Maji (Bengal), Archana Devi (UPCA), N R Shree Charani (Andhra), Jintimani Kalita (Assam), Bidisha Dey (Bengal), Kranthi Reddy N (HYD), Amruta Saran (Puducherry), Soumya Verma (KSCA)
Team D: Najla CMC (C) (Kerala), Anaya Garg (VC) (RCA), Aishwarya Singh (Chhattisgarh), Roshini Kiran (KSCA), Shikha (UPCA), Yashita Singh (Bihar), Pooja Raj (Uttarakhand), Ishitha Koduri (Hyderabad), Parunika Sisodia (DDCA), Vasuvi Fishta (HP), Hurley Gala (Mumbai), Krishna D Patel (Gujarat), Mahek Pokar (Mumbai).