USA Cricket Women’s Training Groups announced

USA Cricket (USAC) announced their Women’s and Women’s U-19 Training Groups on Monday. The Women’s Training Group features an expanded roster, with 28 names included.

Five members of the Women’s National Training Group will also participate in the Women’s U-19 National Training Group. This marks the first time that USAC have ever named a women’s youth age group squad. With 24 chosen to the Women’s U-19 Training group, the total number of unique cricketers selected between the two training squads comes to 47.

Of the group of 28 women selected for the senior training squad, 18 have represented USAC before. Amongst those who have not represented USAC are former Middlesex youth, Cambridge University and Marylebone Cricket Club member Nikhila Ravi, young Grenadian fast bowler Holly Charles (who also excelled in track and field throwing events at her Brooklyn High School) and Moksha Chaudhary, who played for the India Blue squad in 2012. 

The five young cricketers named in both teams are Anika Kolan, Chetnaa Prasad, Laasya Mullapudi, USA Women’s bowler Lisa Ramjit, and Isani Vaghela, sister of USAC Men’s U-19 all-rounder Vatsal Vaghela. 

In the announcement, USA Women’s National Team Head Coach, Julia Price was thrilled at the prospects for named squad.

‘I’m really excited that Team USA has the opportunity to return to cricket in 2021. It is a huge year for USA in the Women’s game, particularly with some of the exciting new talent that we have coming through.

‘In order for the USA to be competitive in world cricket, we need to keep challenging and pushing our current players to be committed elite athletes. We also need to continue to grow and expose more American cricketers to the great game of cricket through our domestic programs.’

Speaking about the forthcoming ODI World Cup Qualifier in July, Price highlighted the importance match practice.

‘[The tournament] will be a brilliant experience and provide us with a great exposure on the global stage, it will also hold us in good stead for the critical T20 World Cup Americas Qualifier in September.’

Along with the training teams, USAC announced a new domestic zonal structure for women, modified from the current overall six zone setup. The East and Mid-Atlantic zones will combine to form the East Area, the Midwest and South zones combine to form the Central Area, the South West Zone will stand alone as the South West Area, and the West Zone will stand alone as the West Area. USAC plans to split the two combining areas into the original zones as the women’s game develops in those areas.  

USA will host the ICC T20 Women’s World Cup Americas Qualifiers this coming September. Games against Canada, Brazil and Argentina will become the first international games the USA Women’s team will have participated in for two years, having last played in Scotland for the 2019 ICC Women’s World Cup Qualifier in September of that year. 

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