Jay Shah, the Board of Control for Cricket in India’s (BCCI) Secretary, announced that the women’s team will be playing their first-ever day-night Test later this year. India Women will be playing the pink-ball Test against Australia later this year.
India and England Women will also be playing a Test match in June this year. This would be the first Test for the women’s team in the last seven years.
Jay Shah Announced BCCI Women Will Play Their First Ever Pink Ball Day-Night Test Later In 2021 Against And In Australia
India women last played a Test match in November 2014, against South Africa. In April 2021, the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) confirmed the fixtures for the tour, including the one-off Test match, and three Women’s One Day International (WODI) and three Women’s Twenty20 International (WT20I) matches. BCCI secretary Jay Shah announced that the women’s team will play its first-ever pink-ball Test in Australia later this year.
“Taking forward our commitment towards women’s cricket, I am extremely pleased to announce that Team India @BCCIwomen will play in their first-ever pink ball day-night Test later this year in Australia,” tweeted Jay Shah.
Jay Shah is an Indian businessman and cricket administrator. Jay Shah is the son of Amit Shah, Home Minister of India. Jay Shah became the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) Secretary in 2019. Jay Shah is also the president of the Asian Cricket Council.
For the England tour, as expected 17-year-old opener Shafali Verma broke into the ODI and Test squads. Senior pacer Shikha Pandey, who was dropped from the home series against South Africa Women in March this year, has been called back for the all-important tour ahead of the 50-over World Cup in February next year.
Mithali Raj will be captaining the ODI and Test sides, while the responsibility of leading India Women in the shortest format will be on Harmanpreet Kaur. Taniya Bhatia and Indrani Roy have been named as the two wicketkeeper-batters for the tour.
Overall, this will be the second Day-Night Test in the history of women’s cricket. The first one was played between England and Australia in Sydney in 2017.
The Test match will be the Mithali Raj-led side’s first in Australia since the Adelaide Test in 2006. Australia and India have played 9 Tests, with Australia winning 4 of them and the other five being drawn. Also, India Women will play 2 Test matches in a single year for the first time after 2014.
BCCI Announced Annual Player Contracts For India’s Senior Women
The BCCI on Wednesday had announced the annual player contracts for Team India (Senior Women) for the period from October 2020 to September 2021. Teen sensation Shafali Verma has now been elevated from Grade C to Grade B. The youngster has taken the women’s game by storm and as a result, she has been rewarded by the board.
Punam Raut and Rajeshwari Gayakwad have also been elevated from Grade C to Grade B. Women’s T20I skipper Harmanpreet Kaur, Smriti Mandhana, and Poonam Yadav are the three names that have been placed in category A and they will be getting Rs 50 lakhs for this period.
Mithali Raj, Jhulan Goswami, Deepti Sharma, Punam Raut, Rajeshwari Gayakwad, Shafali Verma, Radha Yadav, Shikha Pandey, Taniya Bhatia, and Jemimah Rodrigues have been placed in category B and they all will be receiving INR 30 lakhs for this period.
In Grade C, Mansi Joshi, Arundhati Reddy, Pooja Vastrakar, Harleen Deol, Priya Punia, and Richa Ghosh have been placed and they will be getting INR 10 lakhs for this period. India women’s team will next be seen in action against England as both teams will lock horns in a one-off Test, three T20Is, and three ODIs.
The Indian women’s cricket team has reached England to play a one-off Test against England. The BCCI had arranged for charter flights for men’s as well as women’s players for their departure to England. On Monday, Mithali Raj and Harmanpreet Kaur took to social media to laud BCCI’s effort to arrange charter flights for the women’s team.