India take on New Zew Zealand in their T20 World Cup opener (Image Credit:- X)

India take on experienced New Zealand in Group A clash of Women’s T20 world cup in Dubai on Friday (October 4th). Both teams aims to begin the campaign with a win to reach the knock out stages.

In the warm up matches India beat West Indies and South Africa while New Zealand beat South Africa and lost to England.

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Both teams have strong top order with the likes of Smriti Mandhana and Shafali Verma for India and Suzie Bates and Amelia Kerr for New Zealand.

Team India head coach Amol Muzumdar has confirmed that captain Harmanpreet Kaur will begin the T20 World Cup in a role she hasn’t played often in her career , batting at No.3. In her long career majority of the time she batted at No.4.

“We had a fantastic season leading up to the World Cup. We have figured out the right combination that we are going to play tomorrow,” India head coach Amol Muzumdar said.

New Zealand captain Devine will hold key for them with the bat along with Suzie Bates and Amelia Kerr.

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New Zealand lost all their last 5 T20I while India lost only one in their last five.

“Every day I’m going and learning and getting experience from every game. People around me, they are helping me, they are working hard to make our team go at that level where we want to be. I am happy with where our team is, how our team is working hard to achieve small things,” India captain Harmanpreet Kaur said.

“We’ve got a number of young fast bowlers coming through. Their development has been massive the last 12 to 18 months so certainly looking forward to seeing what sort of bowlers they can turn into,” New Zealand captain Sophie Devine said.

India Probable XI:- Smriti Mandhana , Shafali Verma , Harmanpreet Kaur (c) , Jemimah Rodrigues , Richa Ghosh (wk) , Deepti Sharma , Shreyanka Patil , Pooja Vastrakar , Arundhati Reddy , Renuka Thakur , Asha Sobhana.

New Zealand Probable XI:- Suzie Bates , Amelia Kerr , Sophie Devine , Brooke Halliday , Maddy Green , Isabella Gaze (wk) , Fran Jonas , Leigh Kasperek , Jess Kerr , Molly Penfold , Rosemary Mair.