‘Ask the right person’: Captain Harmanpreet Kaur on Shafali, Arundhati exclusions from West Indies series | Cricket News

“Ask the right person.” Amidst intense scrutiny over notable exclusions from India’s limited-overs squads on the eve of the series opener against West Indies, skipper Harmanpreet Kaur deflected questions over the team’s combination rejig three days after the Australia tour.
Speaking ahead of Sunday’s first T20I against the Windies in Navi Mumbai, Kaur refused to comment on the exclusion of opener Shafali Verma from the T20I set-up and pacer Arundhati Reddy who sparkled in India’s last ODI in Perth on Wednesday.
While Shafali was dropped from India’s 50-over set-up before the Australia tour, eyebrows were raised when the dashing batter lost her T20I spot too, despite being India’s second highest run-scorer this year.
“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,” Kaur replied.
Pacer Reddy’s exclusion was also a major surprise after the 27-year-old sparkled in India’s final ODI in Australia. In an otherwise forgetful series, Reddy stood out with a fine burst of seam bowling in Perth, regering four wickets to finish with figures 4/26. Three days later, Reddy was to turn out with the Kerala side in the Senior Women’s One Day Trophy in Ahmeabad, when it was expected that she would hold her spot in the national side after an impressive outing.
Kaur also defended her side’s performance despite the 3-0 drubbing in Australia, highlighting India’s recent home series. Having failed to progress beyond the group stage in the T20 World Cup in October, India bounced back with a 2-1 ODI series win against New Zealand at home.
“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,” Kaur told reporters.
“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 said.
Harmanpreet also refused to comment on the crammed scheduling that will have her team switch to T20Is within three days of their return back home.
“I am not the right person to answer that. You can definitely ask the right person. To be honest, it is difficult because we are coming from Australia and after the game, only within 4-5 hours we left the country and came back to India,” she said.

Why should you buy our Subscription?

You want to be the smartest in the room.
You want access to our award-winning journalism.
You don’t want to be misled and misinformed.

Choose your subscription package