India have injected fresh teenage firepower into their squad as G Kamalini and Vaishnavi Sharma receive their maiden call-ups for the upcoming five-match T20I series against Sri Lanka. The selectors have left out Radha Yadav, Yastika Bhatia, and Sayali Satghare, all of whom were part of the squad that faced England.
Kamalini, just 17, continues her meteoric rise after a standout U19 Asia Cup and an impressive WPL season with Mumbai Indians. Her finishing skills, highlighted by a last-over cameo against RCB, earned her a retention worth INR 50 lakh. She also shone in the Senior Women’s T20 Trophy, scoring 297 runs in seven games to finish as the tournament’s sixth-highest scorer.
Nineteen-year-old Vaishnavi, a left-arm spinner, has been equally dominant. She topped the wicket charts in both the Senior Women’s T20 Trophy (21 wickets) and the Senior Inter-Zonal T20s (12 wickets). A key performer in India’s U19 World Cup triumph, she finished as the tournament’s leading wicket-taker with 17 dismissals.
Among the omissions, Radha Yadav misses out despite taking four wickets in India’s ODI World Cup win, while Yastika Bhatia continues her recovery from a knee injury. Harmanpreet Kaur will lead an otherwise settled squad.
The series begins in Visakhapatnam on December 21 and 23, before moving to Thiruvananthapuram for the final three T20Is on December 26, 28, and 30.
India’s T20I squad vs Sri Lanka:
Harmanpreet Kaur (C), Smriti Mandhana (VC), Deepti Sharma, Sneh Rana, Jemimah Rodrigues, Shafali Verma, Harleen Deol, Amanjot Kaur, Arundhati Reddy, Kranti Gaud, Renuka Singh Thakur, Richa Ghosh (WK), G Kamalini (WK), N Sree Charani, Vaishnavi Sharma.
