30 India players assemble in Bengaluru for a preparatory camp ahead of Australia tour

30 India players - comprising of international and domestic stars - have assembled in Bengaluru on Tuesday (August 10) for a preparatory camp ahead of the multi-format tour of Australia that's scheduled to start on September 19. Players will have to undergo mandatory five-day quarantine before they can start training. The Indian contingent of Harmanpreet Kaur, Smriti Mandhana, Jemimah Rodrigues, Deepti Sharma, and Shafali Verma, currently playing in England's The Hundred competition, have been told to join the camp immediately after their respective teams play their last match.



While there has been no official announcements, Women's CricZone understands that all the India internationals that were part of the England tour and domestic regulars are part of the camp. All the centrally contracted players, with the exception of pacer Mansi Joshi, will feature in the camp. After being left out of the contract list, Veda Krishnamurthy, Anuja Patil and Dayalan Hemalatha were not able to make it to the extended training squad. Rajeshwari Gayakwad, who missed out on England tour as she was recovering from COVID-19, returned to the mix while wicket-keeper Sushma Verma has been left out. It is also understood that the final squad for the tour down under will be selected from these players post the culmination of the camp.



Among the domestic players, left-arm spinner Preeti Bose, who played her last match for India in 2016, is part of the training group along with 25-year-old Himachal Pradesh pace bowler and India A regular Renuka Singh Thakur. Chandigarh captain Amanjot Kaur, who amassed 263 runs with an average of 87.66 during the last domestic season, has also been selected.



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From the squad that featured in the home series against South Africa in March this year, Uttar Pradesh wicket-keeper Sweta Verma and Baroda's  has retained her spot for the camp while debutantes from that series Monica Patel, Ayushi Soni, C Pratyusha are also among the training contingent. With the head coach Ramesh Powar stressing on the need to develop a strong fast bowling group, a bunch of pacers have been included with the likes of Meghna Singh, who had an impress run with Railways in their victorious Senior One Day campaign in 2020-21 season, finding a place.



This will be their second multi-format series for India after having featured in one during the England series where they went down 10-6 to the hosts after drawing the one-off Test while losing the ODI and T20I legs. The high profile series ahead of the World Cup in New Zealand will see India clash against Australia in three ODIs, three T20Is, and a historic day-night Test in Perth.



Squad: Mithali Raj, Punam Raut, Priya Punia, Sneh Rana, Taniya Bhatia, Indrani Roy, Jhulan Goswami, Shikha Pandey, Pooja Vastrakar, Arundhati Reddy, Poonam Yadav, Ekta Bisht, Radha Yadav, Harleen Deol, Simran Dil Bahadur, Richa Ghosh, Saima Thakor, C Pratyusha, Meghana Singh, Rajeshwari Gayakwad, Preeti Bose, Renuka Singh Thakur, Amanjot Kaur, Monica Patel, Sweta Verma, Ayushi Soni, Yastika Bhatia, Rashi Kanojiya, Ashwani Kumari, Maya Sonawane