India captain Harmanpreet Kaur excused herself from questions regarding exclusions of fiery opener Shafali Verma and pacer Arundhati Reddy from the ODI and T20I squads for home series against West Indies.
On the eve of the first T20I against West Indies, Harmanpreet said that the question about Shafali and Reddy's absence should not be directed towards her.
“I can only talk about the team, (the) team is here and what (all) things we can do to win this series. Regarding Shefali or any other player, (it is) better to ask the right persons,” Harmanpreet replied while talking to the reporters in Navi Mumbai where the three-T20I series will be held.
Shafali was dropped after an extended mediocre run in limited overs formats. Even after Priya Punia got injured during the recently concluded ODI series against Australia, she wasn't recalled to the side.
On the other hand, Arundhati was a part of the ODI tour of Australia. She proved her worth with a phenomenal spell at the WACA Ground, Perth taking four wickets for 26 runs. The pacer caused a batting collapse but it wasn't enough to stop Australia from posting a big score and whitewash.
Harmanpreet defended her team's lacklustre display on Australian soil. She feels that home advantage will help them perform better against the Caribbean side.
“After the World Cup, we played against New Zealand, we did really well in the home conditions and Australia tour result was not something which we were expecting but lot of learnings for us,” the experienced all-rounder said.
“In India, whenever we (have) played, we (have) played good cricket, the only (disappointing) thing was (the) World Cup and then the Australia tour which didn’t go according to our plans but apart from that, if I see in this year, we played really good cricket, we won lot of matches in home conditions. These things happen and as a team, it’s very important for us to stay together and think about all the positives we have done in the past,” she added.
India vs West Indies head-to-head
India have an upper hand over West Indies with 13 wins from 21 T20Is played since 2011. However, their record is poor against the West Indies at home with five losses from seven games. The last India played a T20I against West Indies at home was in 2016.
