Veteran India cricketers Mithali Raj, Jhulan Goswami and Shikha Pandey are notable absentees in the squads announced by BCCI for the forthcoming edition of the Women's T20 Challenge. The Velocity side, led by Raj in the last edition of the tournament in 2020, will now be captained by @L0$ while Smriti Mandhana and Harmanpreet Kaur will continue to skipper the Trailblazers and Supernovas respectively.
@I0$
Raj and Goswami had featured in the @L1$ despite having previously retired from T20 Internationals. Pandey, who played for Velocity in that competition, was left out of India's home assignment against South Africa in March, 2021 and subsequently missed the 50-over World Cup in New Zealand earlier this year. Hard-hitting batter Veda Krishnamurthy is another absentee from the squads, that sees the inclusion of Kiran Navgire who turned heads with an unbeaten 162* while playing for Nagaland in the Domestic T20 competition.
The overseas player contingent for the season includes Aussie leg spinner Alana King. Australian cricketers had missed the 2020 season due to a scheduling clash with the WBBL. Sophie Ecclestone, Sophia Dunkley-Brown, Kate Cross (England), Laura Wolvaardt, Sune Luus, Ayabonga Khaka (South Africa), Deandra Dottin, Hayley Matthews (West Indies), Salma Khatun, Sharmin Akter (Bangladesh) and Natthakan Chantham (Thailand) are the other overseas cricketers in the competition.
The fourth iteration of the T20 Challenge will begin on May 23 with a rematch of the 2020 finals between the Trailblazers and the Supernovas. For a second time running, a team will have a little more than 12 hours of recovery between games with Supernovas scheduled to play the evening game on May 23 and the afternoon clash the following day. The final will be held on May 28. All games will be played at Pune's MCA Stadium.
@B0$
May 23: Trailblazers vs Supernovas – 19:30 IST
May 24: Supernovas vs Velocity – 15:00 IST
May 26: Velocity vs Trailblazers – 19:30 IST
May 28: Final
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