October 9 at the Women’s T20 World Cup: Harmanpreet fit to play for India vs Sri Lanka

India received good news on the fitness of captain Harmanpreet Kaur,  who is available to play today’s game after spraining her neck and retiring hurt in the last over of India’s chase against Pakistan. Pooja Vastrakar though, is unlikely to take part having missed Sunday’s match due to a niggle, with S Sajana replacing her.

India hold the advantage by a 19-5 margin in T20Is against Sri Lanka. But one of those five defeats was as recent as this July at the Asia Cup final. India will be keen on exacting revenge. They need a big win to bolster their NRR, something that they did not manage in their victory against Pakistan despite restricting them to 105. A defeat for Sri Lanka, meanwhile, will make their chances of moving to the next round almost nil. Dew has not had much of an effect in the games in Dubai so far, with the sticky nature of the surface and long boundaries also not making run-scoring easy.

India squad:
Harmanpreet Kaur (capt), Smriti Mandhana (vice-capt), Yastika Bhatia (wk), Shafali Verma, Deepti Sharma, Jemimah Rodrigues, Richa Ghosh (wk), Pooja Vastrakar, Arundhati Reddy, Renuka Singh, D Hemalatha, Asha Sobhana, Radha Yadav, Shreyanka Patil, S Sajana

Sri Lanka squad:
Chamari Athapaththu (capt), Harshitha Samarawickrama, Vishmi Gunaratne, Kavisha Dilshari, Nilakshika Silva, Hasini Perera, Anushka Sanjeewani (wk), Sachini Nisansala, Udeshika Prabodhani, Inoshi Priyadharshani, Achini Kulasuriya, Inoka Ranaweera, Shashini Gimhani, Ama Kanchana, Sugandika Kumari

Tournament form guide:
India suffered a big 58-run loss against New Zealand in their opening game, but managed to get past Pakistan in Dubai by six wickets on Sunday. Sri Lanka, on the other hand, are currently bottom of the group A points table, and are yet to win a game. They lost their opening match against lower ranked Pakistan by 31 runs, and then went down to Australia by six wickets on Saturday.

Player to watch:
Smriti Mandhana does not have the greatest of records in T20Is against Sri Lanka: 379 runs in 19 innings at 22.29 with two fifties. But in a crunch game, India will bank on their experienced batter to give them a grand start, something that has not happened so far in the tournament.

[Cricinfo]