India tour of England: Shafali Verma gets maiden ODI, Test call-ups; Shikha Pandey back in the mix

The All-India Senior Women’s Selection Committee on Friday announced the Indian squad for the one-off Test match, ODI and T20 series against England.

The big news was the inclusion of teen batting star Shafali Verma in the Test and ODI squads. The right-hander had so far been restricted to just the T20 format, in which she has represented India 22 times, but this will be a chance for her to show that she can have an impact across formats.

The longer formats will test her fitness, fielding and concentration though and all three are aspects of the game that she needed to work on.

Shikha Pandey, Taniya Bhatia, Ekta Bisht also returned after missing out on the series against South Africa while Indrani Roy, who impressed in the National One Day competition, gets her maiden international call-up.

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Monica Patel, C Prathyusha and Mansi Joshi find no place in the squads while the experienced Rajeshwari Gayakwad missed out due to injury.

The tour begins with a one-off Test in Bristol on June 16, followed by three ODIs and three T20Is.

India’s Senior Women squad for Test & ODI: Mithali Raj (Captain), Smriti Mandhana, Harmanpreet Kaur (vice-captain), Punam Raut, Priya Punia, Deepti Sharma, Jemimah Rodrigues, Shafali Verma, Sneh Rana, Taniya Bhatia (wicket-keeper), Indrani Roy (wicket-keeper), Jhulan Goswami, Shikha Pandey, Pooja Vastrakar, Arundhati Reddy, Poonam Yadav, Ekta Bisht, Radha Yadav.

India’s Senior Women squad for T20I: Harmanpreet Kaur (Captain) Smriti Mandhana (vice-captain), Deepti Sharma, Jemimah Rodrigues, Shafali Verma, Richa Ghosh, Harleen Deol, Sneh Rana, Taniya Bhatia (wicket-keeper), Indrani Roy (wicket-keeper), Shikha Pandey, Pooja Vastrakar, Arundhati Reddy, Poonam Yadav, Ekta Bisht, Radha Yadav, Simran Dil Bahadur.