Team India Will Play The Series For The First Time After Mithali's Retirement, And Will Face Sri Lanka On Thursday

The Indian women's cricket team will look to make a fresh start in the first T20 match of the three-match series against Sri Lanka starting on Thursday from all formats under the leadership of new captain Harmanpreet Kaur. The T20 format of cricket has been included in the upcoming Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, with the ICC Women's T20 World Cup also eight months away and the Indian team would like to make a solid start to their campaign.

This is the first international tournament for the Indian women's team after a disappointing performance in the ODI World Cup 2022. This is the first competition for the Indian team after the retirement of veteran player Mithali Raj. Mithali retired from cricket after an illustrious international career spanning 23 years. Personally, captain Harmanpreet will have her eyes set on leaving Mithali behind. The 33-year-old Harmanpreet has scored 2319 runs in 121 matches and needs 46 runs to surpass Mithali in the shortest format of the game.

Hosts Sri Lanka, however, will start the series on the back foot as the team suffered a 0-3 clean sweep in the recent T20I series against Pakistan. India, however, will have to be on guard against experienced Sri Lankan players like Oshadi Ranasinghe and Chamari Atapattu. India played the last T20 match against New Zealand in February this year, in which the team lost by 18 runs. Looking at the current form, India will have high hopes from Mandhana, Shefali Verma, Deepti Sharma, and pacer Pooja Vastrakar.