Women’s T20 World Cup 2023: Harmanpreet Kaur uncertain; Pooja Vastrakar ruled out of semifinal

Harmanpreet Kaur, the captain of the Indian women’s cricket team, may miss the Women’s T20 World Cup semifinal match against Australia owing to illness, according to sources. Pooja Vastrakar, an all-rounder, will miss the game owing to an upper respiratory tract virus. With six points from four matches, India qualified for the competition’s knockout stages. While the Harmanpreet-led team defeated Pakistan, the West Indies, and Ireland, their sole loss came against England. If Harmanpreet is unable to play, vice-captain Smriti Mandhana will take over as captain. There were also some injury concerns over Radha Yadav, who missed the match against Ireland.

“The Event Technical Committee of the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup 2023 has approved Sneh Rana as a replacement for Pooja Vastrakar in the India squad,” ICC said in a statement on Thursday.

Harmanpreet had raised some concerns for Team India ahead of the semi-final match.

“We started really well but in the middle overs, we did not bowl according to plan and gave away too many runs. That is where we lost the momentum. We were doing well with the bat but did not get the run rate that we were looking for and that is why we lost wickets,” said Harmanpreet in the post-match presentation after the loss against England.

Harmanpreet also discussed the number of dot balls faced by Indian hitters. After facing 51 dot balls in their loss to England, India showed some progress against Ireland with 41 dots in their innings of 155 for 6, led by Smriti Mandhana’s T20I career-best score of 87.

“World Cup games are always something where both the teams are always under pressure. I think these matches if 150 is on the board, you always [have] the upper hand. We are not putting too much pressure on ourselves. We are just going [out] there and understanding what conditions are there and just playing according to the situation. Dot balls are something which [are] already worrying us. In the next game, we would love to see some improvement in that area also,” Harmanpreet added

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