S Meghana, Renuka Singh Thakur find place in India's pre-New Zealand tour boot camp

tour of Australia along with S Meghana and Renuka Singh Thakur, have assembled for a boot camp ahead of the tour of New Zealand. The rigorous training camp in Dehradun will start tomorrow Friday (December 24). Recently, players went through assessment tests in Mumbai ahead of the boot camp. These players will go through another preparatory camp in the first week of January for which the location is yet to be confirmed.

While there hasn't been any official announcement, Women’s CricZone understands that the squad for the upcoming series against New Zealand and the World Cup in 2022 will be selected from these players. Thakur, who made her international debut in the T20Is during the multi-format series against Australia, has been added to the camp. She was also part of the India A side that lifted the recently concluded Challenger Trophy.

Also Read: Meghana Sabbineni: Indian Railways' North Star

Meanwhile, S Meghana topped the batting charts for Railways in Senior One-Day Trophy and repeated the feat in Challenger Trophy. The right-handed batter was supremely consistent with the bat as she scored 595 runs across 10 matches, including two centuries. If given the opportunity, the 25-year-old will play her first international in five years.

India’s last ODI assignment was against the No.1 ranked side in Australia in October 2021. Even though the team lost the ODI leg of the multi-format series against the hosts, they were successful in breaking the 26-match winning streak of Australia, which started with a win against them back in 2018 in Baroda. For India Meghana Singh, Yastika Bhatia and Richa Ghosh made their debut during that series, and they have found themselves in the camp ahead of the long tour.

The Indian contingent is expected to leave for New Zealand in the third week of January. Upon arrival, the team will go through 14-day mandatory quarantine in New Zealand ahead of the series. India will face the hosts in a one-off T20I followed by five ODIs starting from February 9, 2022. India’s World Cup campaign will start against Pakistan on March 6 at the Bay Oval in Tauranga.

Squad: Mithali Raj (c), Harmanpreet Kaur (vc), Smriti Mandhana, Shafali Verma, Punam Raut, Jemimah Rodrigues, Deepti Sharma, Sneh Rana, Yastika Bhatia, Taniya Bhatia (wk), Shikha Pandey, Jhulan Goswami, Meghna Singh, Pooja Vastrakar, Rajeshwari Gayakwad, Poonam Yadav, Richa Ghosh, Ekta Bisht, S Meghana, Renuka Singh Thakur