Shikha Pandey rested to try new combination: Harmanpreet Kaur

CHENNAI: India’s ODI vice-captain Harmanpreet Kaur on Friday cleared the air over some unexpected selection calls for the upcoming limited-overs series against South Africa, starting in Lucknow on Sunday. The move to leave out lead pacer Shikha Pandey in the squad was “a tough one” but Harmapreet revealed that she has been rested and not dropped.   

The squad consists of six new faces, with many notable omissions including left-arm spinner Ekta Bisht, Anuja Patil, Veda Krishnamurthy, wicketkeeper-batter Taniya Bhatia. Considering that Shikha has been the lead wicket-taker for the team since her debut in 2014, the selectors’ decision to not include her in the contingent raised many eyebrows.

“I know it was a very tough call, but sometimes you need to give chance to other players. She’s not dropped; we are just giving rest to a few players and we just want to try other players,” said Harmanpreet during a virtual press conference on Friday. “I know we are playing after a long time and we wanted to go with the same combination. But, at the same time, when you haven’t played too much cricket, sometimes you need to take chances and try to give a chance to other players.”

With India women set to take the field after almost a year — their last assignment was the T20 World Cup in Australia last February-March —  the 31-year-old revealed that the idea behind selecting fresh faces was to see if they would fit into the scheme of things considering that the next 12-18 months is important.

The team will play the 50-over World Cup in 2022 in New Zealand, followed by the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham and then the T20 World Cup in 2023. “I hope after this tournament, we’ll be able to set our combination because the next two-three years we have a lot of cricket coming up,” she added. “And that’s the reason they (the selectors) are just giving chances to a few other players.”

Though India will be kick-starting their activities at the international level several months after nations such as Australia, New Zealand and England resumed it, India’s deputy said they want to make the best use of playing against South Africa.