Veteran all-rounder Rumeli Dhar, on Saturday returned to the Indian women’s cricket team for the remaining three Twenty20 Internationals against South Africa in place of injured Jhulan Goswami, thus ending a six-year hiatus.
The selection committee was forced to make this change after pace spearhead suffered an injury to her heel ahead of the first match. The 35-year-old recently became the first bowler in women’s cricket to take 200 ODI wickets. She achieved the feat during the second match, leading India to a 178-win at Kimberley. The former India captain had broken Australia speed gun Cathryn Fitzpatrick’s record.
The 34-year-old Dhar has represented India four Tests, 78 ODIs and 15 T20Is for India, but has not featured in the international setup since 2012. She currently lies seventh in India’s all-time leading wicket-takers in ODIs, boasting of 63 scalps. Dhar is among a select brand of players to have opened the batting and bowling for India.
Harmanpreet Kaur’s side had registered a comprehensive nine-wicket win in the second match on Friday and lead the T20I series 2-0. The last three games will be played in Johannesburg Centurion and Cape Town. They will be double-headers and will be broadcast alongside the men’s team’s matches.
Squad
Harmanpreet Kaur (c), Smriti Mandhana, Mithali Raj, Veda Krishnamurthy, Jemimah Rodrigues, Deepti Sharma, Anuja Patil, Taniya Bhatia (wk), Nuzhat Parveen (wk), Poonam Yadav, Rajeshwari Gayakwad, Shikha Pandey, Pooja Vastrakar, Radha Yadav, Rumeli Dhar.
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