The Indian women's team’s ODI series against New Zealand will now begin a day later on February 12 as the cricket board of the host nation has changed the schedule to give both the teams more time between matches. The Indian team were scheduled to play five ODIs and one T20I match against New Zealand at three venues from February 9 but New Zealand Cricket (NZC) has decided to stage all the matches in Queenstown so that there would be less travel in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Along with this, the schedule has been changed to give more time between matches to both the teams.
Official statement
"NZC has made changes to the dates of the KFC India Tour of NZ between the WHITE FERNS and India Women, to be played exclusively at John Davies Oval in Queenstown.
"The date of the first KFC T20I remains the same but there has been some adjustments made to the subsequent five match KFC ODI series," a statement from NZC read.
It is important to be mentioned that in this series, which is considered pretty significant for the preparation of the ICC Women's ODI World Cup to be held in March-April in New Zealand itself, the T20 match will be played on February 9.
The ODI series will now be held from February 12. The second ODI will be played on February 14, the third on February 18. The last two ODIs will be held on February 22 and 24 only.
All the matches, including the ODIs and the one-off T20I will be played in Queenstown.
The Indian women’s team cricketers are currently in isolation and the mandatory quarantine.
Revised schedule of Indian women's team:
One-off T20I - 9 February, Queenstown
1st ODI - February 12, Queenstown
2nd ODI - February 15, Queenstown
3rd ODI - February 18, Queenstown
4th ODI - February 22, Queenstown
5th ODI - February 24, Queenstown
India Women's squad for one-off T20I:
Harmanpreet Kaur (Captain), Smriti Mandhana (vice-captain), Shafali Verma, Yastika Bhatia, Deepti Sharma, Richa Ghosh (wicket-keeper), Sneh Rana, Pooja Vastrakar, Meghna Singh, Renuka Singh Thakur, Taniya Bhatia (wicket-keeper), Rajeshwari Gayakwad, Poonam Yadav, Ekta Bisht, S. Meghna, Simran Dil Bahadur
