Mamatha Maben retained as head coach of Karnataka senior team

Former India skipper Mamatha Maben has been retained as head coach of the Karnataka State Cricket Association (KSCA) women's senior team for the 2020-21 season the association announced on Friday (May 29). Maben has been coaching the team for a while, even leading them to a second place finish in the 2018-19 Inter-State T20 championship where they lost to Punjab by four runs.



Aside from her work with the state side, Maben has also worked with the Velocity team in last year's Women's T20 Challenge. Additionally, she was recently put in charge of the Smriti Mandhana-led India B side in the T20 Challenger Trophy in Bhubaneswar this January. The team reached the final, but were blown away by a magical display of strokeplay from Shafali Verma.



Over the last couple of seasons, Karnataka has shown consistency in the domestic circuit, challenging the top teams, but unable to make the push for silverware. Recently, in the 2019-20 Inter-State one-day competition they seemed poised to make a real run for the trophy having comfortably qualified for the knock-out stage of the tournament. They would have been bolstered by the return of Veda Krishnamurthy to the line-up, but unfortunately, the tournament was called off due to the coronavirus pandemic.



ALSO READ: Mamatha Maben applies for position of India head coach



Under her stewardship, Karnataka has seen the emergence of several talented players who have pushed for higher honours. In the current squad, Krishnamurthy aside, Vanitha VR, the hard-hitting batter, and C Pratyusha, the leg-spinner, and Rakshitha Krishnappa, the middle-order batter, have also been a part of national camps at different times, even playing for India A on a few occasions. The likes of Akanksha Kohli, Shubha Sateesh, skipper G Divya and Sanjana Batni have made appearances in the senior South Zone team as well.



Maben's appointment aside, KSCA also announced that Lakshmi Hariharan would take over as head coach of the junior teams. She has been associated with cricket for more than 20 years, winning the Under-19 South Zone trophy for Karnataka as a player many years ago. She has also represented Singapore and is a well-respected name in the Karnataka setup.



Both the senior and junior selection committees were also announced with D Jayashree and Chandrika Sridhar as the respective chairpersons. Santosh Menon, the KSCA secretary, will serve as the convener for all the committees.



Senior selection committee: D Jayashree (chairperson), Pushpa Kumar, Leena Prasad, PJ Hemalatha.



Junior selection committee: Chandrika Sridhar (chairperson), Ashrayi Ram, Anuradha Prasad, Nivedita Reshme.