Home
Cricket News
India Women To Play Their First Ever Pink Ball Test Against Australia Women

India Women to play their first ever pink-ball Test against Australia Women

Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) Honorary Secretary Jay Shah announced that the Indian Women’s team will play their first-ever pink-ball Test in the game’s history. The match will take place late this year in September when India Women will travel to Australia for a multi-format tour, also involving England.

Shah tweeted the development early on May 20, just hours later than the BCCI released the list of central contract for the Indian Women’s team for the upcoming season of 2021-22.

The Women in blue are currently in Mumbai for a two-week hard quarantine and then will travel to England along with the Men’s team to play the hosts England's Women in one-off Tests in Bristol starting June 16.

The Indian teams would land in London on June 2 and would then undergo soft quarantine for 10 days before they get ready for their respective challenges. The Men’s team would begin its tour with the World Test Championship Final against New Zealand at Southampton from June 18.

This would also be only the second pink ball Test ever in the history of Women's cricket, the first one was played between Australia and England at the North Sydney Oval during the 2017 Women's Ashes. For India, which has so far played 36 Tests, it would be the 38th game and first in Australia since 2005-06.

Discover more

Indian rope in KS Bharat as cover for Wriddhiman Saha in squad for England tour

India have added KS Bharat into the squad for the tour of England where they will play as many as six Test matches including the final of the inaugural edition of the World Test Championship, news agency ANI reported. Bharat has been added as a cover for Wriddhiman Saha, who has just recovered from a Covid-19 infection that he contracted while being in the biosecure bubble with the Sunrisers Hyderabad in the IPL 2021, the report further said. “He was added as cover for Saha considering he was still recovering from the virus and wicket-keeping is a specialised job. If Saha wasn't fit in time, we would have needed a second keeper in the squad for the tour which is a three-month-long one," ANI quoted an unnamed source in the know of the developments. The BCCI has arranged a chartered flight for players outside of Mumbai to assemble in the city and to quarantine before flying to the UK for the long tour. India have already picked a large squad consisting of 20 players to cover all bases keeping in mind the longevity of the tour and the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic situation that does not allow swift fly in and fly out for players.

Too many conditions force PCB to postpone PSL 6 even as Abu Dhabi gave permission to host

The Abu Dhabi government allowed the Pakistan Cricket Board to hosts the remainder of 20 games of Pakistan Super League’ sixth edition in the United Arab Emirates. However, the conditions imposed by the Emirates health advisory made it almost impossible for PCB to pursue its plans of hosting, thus making it postpone the league which was going to restart from June 1. Pakistani media reported that the reasons for postponement are many. The first condition put by UAE to get everybody travelling to the Gulf nation vaccinated was almost impossible for PCB to fulfil in such limited time as players and crew members of production are from different countries and have different laws and rules regulating vaccination in their nations. The second and bigger problem for the cricket governing body and the six franchises of the league could be the fact that most of the TV production crew is from India and UEA have banned travel from India as of now due to an unprecedented rise in Covid-19 cases in the South Asian country. Thus quarantine for all the members of the hosting party at the same time doesn't seem possible To discuss all that and various other things regarding the league, the PCB and the franchises held a meeting on May 19 and come up with the solution of postponement. The initial phase of PSL-6 hosted entirely in Pakistan was forced to stop after many players in the bio-bubble tested positive. The league started on February 20 and the last game before its postponement was played on March 3.

Asia Cup called off due to Covid-19 situation

The Asia Cup tournament which was scheduled for June this year in Sri Lanka has been called off due to the worsening Covid-19 crisis across the Indian subcontinent, as per an AFP report. Sri Lanka Cricket CEO Ashley de Silva said to reporters in Colombo that the ongoing situation in the Asia continent has made it impossible to host the tournament in June this year. "Due to the prevailing situation, it will not be possible to play the tournament in June this year," Sri Lanka Cricket chief executive Ashley de Silva told reporters. Silva also said that the tournament might get postponed as far as till the 2023 ODI World Cup as most of the member nations of the Asian Cricket Council have their schedule fixed for the next two years.

Watch: India Men’s, Women’s teams assemble in Mumbai for hard quarantine before England tour

The Board of Control in India informed that the members of both the men’s and women’s team of the country have reached Mumbai, their destination for the two weeks hard quarantine, before departure to England. Sharing the pictures of the flight where Men’s team member Ravichandran Ashwin and Women’s team captain Mithali Raj can be seen seating side by side, the official Twitter handle of BCCI captioned it as, “First stop, Mumbai #TeamIndia.” While the Indian Men’s team first assignment in England includes the World Test Championship Final at Southampton against New Zealand starting June 18, the team led by Mithali Raj would take on hosts England in one-off Tests at county Ground Bristol starting June 16. Both the teams will depart from India on June 2 and are expected to undergo a sofer quarantine regime on landing in England. The Women’s team is supposed to play a three meach each ODI and t20i series post the Test match while the Men’s team would have to wait almost 40 days before they get into international action against the hosts England. The Virat Kohli led side would play a five-match Test series against Joe Root’s team starting August 4.