Home Women's Cricket BCCI Announces 2022 Womens ODI World Cup Squad, Jemimah Rodrigues, Shikha Pandey Dropped

BCCI Announces 2022 Womens ODI World Cup Squad, Jemimah Rodrigues, Shikha Pandey Dropped

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BCCI Announces 2022 Womens ODI World Cup Squad, Jemimah Rodrigues, Shikha Pandey Dropped

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) announced the 15-member squad for the 2022 Women’s ODI Cup to be played in New Zealand in a couple of months’ time.

Veteran Mithali Raj, who has already announced that this multi-nation event will be her final swansong, has been entrusted with the responsibility of leading the squad. 

Besides Mithali, the usual suspects like Jhulan Goswami, Harmanpreet Kaur and Smriti Mandhana have also been included in the team.

But more than who has been included in the side, people are outraged over the omission of a couple of key players like young middle-order batter Jemimah Rodrigues and experienced all-rounder Shikha Pandey.

While the BCCI’s press release didn’t mention any reason as to why they were dropped from the World Cup squad, reports in multiple media outlets are claiming that the selectors took the call owing to their poor form in the last calendar year.

Both Jemimah and Shikha have been part of the Indian women’s team for quite some time and nobody actually anticipated that they would be axed from a major tournament like the World Cup.

The Indian women cricketers don’t get as much exposure as their male counterparts anyway, and that’s the reason why they stumble at the last roadblock in major ICC events. 

Twice in the last four years, we have seen our players run riot in the group stage of the tournament but crumble under pressure when it mattered the most in the knock-out stage. 

It happened during the last edition of the women’s ODI World Cup where our athletes went down fighting to hosts England in the final and the same thing happened in the 2019 Women’s T20 World Cup where we were completely blown away by the hosts Australia in front of a packed MCG crowd.

The only way to solve this issue was to back our experienced campaigners for the marquee event but the selectors went in a completely different direction while picking the squad.

Not many had anticipated them to shut the door on two of the most talented players in the country and that’s why when this news broke out, it created a huge outrage on social media, with fans demanding explanations about their strange selection criteria that led to their omission.

Not just in India, Shikha is arguably one of the most skilful fast bowlers in world cricket as far as women’s cricket is concerned, and people couldn’t understand with what logic the selectors decided to overlook her.

The most baffling thing was that the selection panel left her out despite knowing that the tournament would be played in New Zealand where her skill sets could have come in really handy.

Similarly, 21-year-old Jemimah is one of the most promising young batters in the world and she has shown what she is capable of playing in different parts of the world.

Those who follow women’s cricket know that she is one of the most dangerous batters in the world and she can affect the outcome of the game single-handedly.

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By naming up a fairly young and inexperienced squad, the selectors have taken a big gamble. It’s like a double-edged sword. If it works, the world calls you a visionary, and if it doesn’t, you end up becoming a laughing stock.

We pray and hope that the team does well and they don’t have to regret their decision.

ICC Women’s World Cup 2022: 

Mithali Raj (capt), Harmanpreet Kaur (VC), Smriti Mandhana, Shafali Verma, Yastika Bhatia, Deepti Sharma, Richa Ghosh (wk), Sneh Rana, Jhulan Goswami, Pooja Vastrakar, Meghna Singh, Renuka Singh Thakur, Taniya Bhatia (wk), Rajeshwari Gayakwad, Poonam Yadav.

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