USA Cricket name Women’s team for World Cup Qualifier in Zimbabwe

USA Cricket has named their 15-player squad that will head to Zimbabwe next month for the ICC Women’s World Cup Qualifier. 

USA are coming off of a successful ICC T20 World Cup Americas Qualifier in Mexico, where they finished first place at 5-1, and will advance to the 2022 ICC Women’s World T20 Qualifier at a date yet to be named. Eight debutants received caps during the T20 qualifiers, as coach Julia Price and USA Cricket committed to youth following a successful inaugural Women’s National Championships and Women’s U19 National Championships held over the summer. 

This 50 overs squad set for Zimbabwe will include two changes from that T20I side. Texas born Mahika Kandanala, 20 years old, and Washington DC-born Lisa Ramjit, 17 years old, both rejoin the squad, both having received their caps in T20I action in 2019. 

“We are under no illusion as to the scale of the task that we have at hand in Zimbabwe, but also as to the scale of opportunity for our young squad to go and try to achieve something historic for American cricket,” USA Women’s head coach Julia Price said in the announcement.

“I was delighted with the full squad’s efforts in Mexico and we are happy to progress to the Global Qualifier in Twenty20 but the 50 overs challenge presents a different experience for us. We will be competing against no fewer than six ICC Full Members for the three places at the 2022 Women’s Cricket World Cup. We know these teams will be stronger than anything the USA has faced previously.

“Still, we are relishing the chance of showing how good our young talent is, and being competitive.”

Only Sara Farooq, Akshatha Rao, and Shabani Bhaskar have experience at the international level in the 50 overs format, having represented USA at the 2011 Women’s Cricket World Cup Qualifier in Bangladesh, the last time USA has played a 50 overs international contest. 

USA will join Bangladesh, Ireland, the Netherlands, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Sri Lanka, Thailand, the West Indies and Zimbabwe from November 21 through December 5 to decide the final three spots in the ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup 2022, to be held in New Zealand. 

Along with determining the remaining three spots in this World Cup, the top five teams at the end of the qualifier will earn spots in the next cycle of the ICC Women’s Championship (IWC), the Women’s One Day International league which determines direct qualifiers to the World Cup, as the field expands from eight to ten teams. 

Team USA Women’s Squad

Sindhu Srihasha (captain)

Shebani Bhaskar (vice-captain)

Akshatha Rao

Anika Kolan

Chetnaa Prasad

Gargi Bhogle

Geetika Kodali

Isani Vaghela

Lisa Ramjit

Mahika Kandanala

Moksha Chaudhary

Sara Farooq

Suhani Thadani

Tara Norris

Uzma Iftikar