Copyright news18
India have made three changes for their last group stage match of the 2025 Women’s World Cup, against Bangladesh at the Dr DY Patil Sports Academy in Navi Mumbai. The most significant of them is the absence of first-choice wicketkeeper-batter Richa Ghosh, whom captain Harmanpreet Kaur said had been ‘rested’. Ghosh, a match-winner and a crucial lower-order big-hitter in a team that lacks power overall, missed the optional training session on Saturday due to a finger injury she suffered while keeping wickets against New Zealand two days prior. “With regards to Richa’s fitness, I think she is fine, and the S&C team is taking care of it. They are still discussing, so I don’t have the exact updates about it, but she looks fine,” India bowling coach Aavishkar Salvi had told the media after the session. “Since we entered into the World Cup, we already knew that it was a very long tournament and the workloads were planned accordingly. We had said that (when) we get into the World Cup, we plan almost 2-3 months back, so the workload point of view, everything is taken care of,” Salvi added. Harmanpreet didn’t go into any further details while announcing two more changes. “We’re going to bowl first. Because of the overcast conditions, we thought bowling would be a good decision. She (Uma Chetry) is going to debut today. Richa is resting. Two more players are resting – Kranti (Goud) and Sneh Rana. We had the self-belief we could turn it around after three losses.” India’s playing 11: Pratika Rawal, Smriti Mandhana, Harleen Deol, Jemimah Rodrigues, Harmanpreet Kaur (captain), Deepti Sharma, Uma Chetry (wicketkeeper), Amanjot Kaur, Radha Yadav, Shree Charani, and Renuka Singh Thakur India would hope that the injury is a minor one and that she is completely fit for the semi-final against Australia on Thursday, October 30. Chetry is a safe wicketkeeper, but this would be her maiden ODI match, having only played seven T20Is (37 runs in four innings at 90.24) previously. India had another wicketkeeper with much more experience, Yastika Bhatia, but an injury ruled her out of the tournament.
