India Women’s Team’s Head Coach Amol Muzumdar is utilizing the WPL 2024 as a chance to expand the team’s resources. Muzumdar became the head coach late last year, just before the home series against England and Australia. India won one-off Tests against England but lost all white-ball series, including 2-1 in T20I series to England and Australia, and 3-0 in ODIs against Australia.
On Tuesday evening, coach Amol Muzumdar said while commentating on the game between Royal Challengers Bangalore and Gujarat Giants, as quoted by ESPNCricinfo, “I would want another pool of 20-25 players to create a bench strength for the Indian team. Four fast bowlers played the last series, I want to create a pool of fast bowlers [from the WPL]. It makes a lot of difference if you strengthen the bowling attack.”
Renuka Singh, Titas Sadhu, Pooja Vastrakar, and Amanjot Kaur were the four quicks who played in the white-ball matches. Meghna Singh was also part of India’s Test squad but did not play in either of the games. India may experience a decrease in their pace attack since Jhulan Goswami retired in 2022.
They also appear to have moved on from the experienced Shikha Pandey, who made a brief comeback in T20Is in early 2023 but has not played in any of their recent games. Amol Muzumdar praised players like Saika Ishaque and Shreyanka Patil for their potential to climb the WPL pathway and secure a permanent spot in India’s side. He also lauded Sajeevan Sajana for winning Mumbai Indians’ opening game with a first-ball six.
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“Sajana’s six gives you an idea of the depth in Indian cricket,” – he said.
An unknown name who didn’t need the WPL to win a national cap is Karnataka batter Satheesh Shubha. She made her Test debut against England, scoring a composed half-century, but was unable to play against Australia due to injury. Muzumdar said he had spotted her during a warm-up match before the home season and immediately decided to play her at the international level.
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“There is an upscale movement in India’s batters” – Amol Muzumdar
“I organized a match at the NCA here at the Chinnaswamy Stadium. It was a four-day warm-up match and she (Shubha) did very well there – she scored 99 and 50. She’s a left-hander and bats well at No. 3. After seeing her in the nets I had decided to bat her at No. 3. Not many players had seen her at the time,” – the head coach stated. “I’ll thank Harman (India captain Harmanpreet Kaur) because she agreed for the call immediately.”
Amol Muzumdar added that India conducted a camp before their most recent assignments, focusing on fitness and fielding.
“In the first meeting before the England and Australia series we had cleared that fitness and fielding are non-negotiable. Every player is working towards it, it’s not just talk. There’s clear thinking and planning behind it.”
After five games in the second season of the WPL, Muzumdar was pleased to witness Indian batters like S Meghana(RCB), Richa Ghosh(RCB), and Shafali Verma(DC) scoring runs in crucial situations.
“There is an upscale movement in India’s batters,” – he said. “The confidence from those two series against England and Australia is on display because of how they performed there.”
Before the WPL had started, Harmanpreet had also said the uncapped players could use the WPL as a platform to break into the India squad with a T20 World Cup coming up in September-October in Bangladesh.
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