The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) on March 24 announced India women's squad for the five-T20I series against South Africa next month. The selection committee has made a few changes. Amanjot Kaur, Gunalan Kamalini, Vaishnavi Sharma, Sneh Rana have been dropped from the squad that toured Australia. Kashvee Gautam is set for her T20I debut whereas wicketkeeper-batter Uma Chetry has returned to the squad.
Amanjot was not at her best in the T20I series against Australia. She registered scores of 3, 1 and 13. Also, she remained wicketless in all the games and had a poor economy rate. Kashvee is her like-for-like replacement. She made her Test and ODI debut on Australian soil.
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17-year-old Kamalini her T20I debut last year against Sri Lanka. She did not play a game against Australia in the series and wasn't picked for the tour of South Africa next month. Sneh and Vaishnavi did not play a T20I on Australian tour either. Uma, who has 37 runs from four T20I innings, has made a comeback to the side.
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The T20I series will begin on April 17 and go on till April 27. It will work as a preparatory series for T20 World Cup 2026 which commences on June 12 on England soil.
India's squad for T20I series vs South Africa
Harmanpreet Kaur (c), Smriti Mandhana (vc), Shafali Verma, Jemimah Rodrigues, Deepti Sharma, Richa Ghosh (wk), Arundhati Reddy, Renuka Thakur, Kranti Gaud, Sree Charani, Shreyanka Patil, Kashvee Gautam, Bharti Fulmali, Uma Chetry (wk), Anushka Sharma.
India vs South Africa T20Is head-to-head
The last time India toured South Africa for a T20I series was in 2018. India won the five-T20I series 3-1.
So far, the two teams have played 19 T20Is against each other. India have had an upper hand, beating South Africa 10 out of 19 times whereas three ended in no result.
Mandhana holds the record for most T20I runs for India against South Africa. From 19 T20Is, she has 406 runs at an average of 29 and strike rate of 121.55, including three fifties.
In the bowling department, off-spin all-rounder Deepti has 16 wickets from 14 T20Is at an average of 19.93. Radha Yadav has 16 wickets too but she isn't part of the squad. Deepti needs two more wickets to become leading wicket-taker in India-South Africa T20I clashes. Currently, the record is held by former South Africa pacer Shabnim Ismail with 17 wickets from 14 T20Is.