MUMBAI: It’s a season of T20 cricket. While India’s men’s cricketers are playing in IPL 2026, the Indian women’s cricket team is currently in South Africa for a five-match T20I series (as per a source they arrived in SA in three batches, thanks to the West Asia crisis which has affected aviation big time) against the hosts, which starts at Kingsmead in Durban from Friday night. The series will serve as an ideal build-up for the 2026 T20 World Cup in June-July in England. Go Beyond The Boundary with our YouTube channel. SUBSCRIBE NOW!Like in the case of the India men’s team, currently the world champions in T20 cricket, India’s women’s team is looking good in the shortest format too. In December last year, Harmanpreet Kaur & Co swept a five-match home series 5-0 against Sri Lanka in a dominant performance. In February this year, India beat Australia in a Women’s T20I series for the first time in a decade when they clinched a three-match T20I series 2-1 Down Under.
Indian women’s team captain Harmanpreet Kaur believes that her side is playing more confidently after its memorable 2025 Women’s ODI World Cup triumph in October-November last year, and is in a great place right now, going into the away T20I series against the Proteas, and more importantly, going into the T20 World Cup this summer.“Yeah, definitely. I think after the (2025) ODI World Cup (triumph), our team is looking quite confident. Wherever we are going, we are going with a lot of confidence, and we have seen that, playing against Australia. Our team is looking in good shape. And before the (T20) World Cup, the South Africa series is very important for us. Hopefully, we will play our best cricket here as well. And I think it’s a great opportunity for us before the (T20) World Cup to (make it) all come together and play our best cricket. We want to take this opportunity seriously and play good cricket over here,” Harmanpreet told reporters from Durban in an online press conference on Thursday, a day ahead of the opening T20I of the series.Harmanpreeet is, of course, not taking South Africa, a team which has reached the final of the last two T20 World Cups, and lost to India in the final of the 2025 ODI World Cup to India, lightly. “The South African team is quite a balanced side. They have very good players. They have good all-rounders who always come up when the team needs them. In the T20 format, you always need good all-rounders. I think that they have been playing really good cricket for the last four or five years.. every time reaching the finals and doing really well and playing good, competitive cricket,” Harman said.“I mean, that’s why we wanted to play against them before the (T20) World Cup, because you always get good confidence when you do well against good teams. So South Africa is one of the teams we always rate very highly,” she added.In the midst of this T20 success, it must be kept in mind that India’s women’s team was blanked 3-0 in the ODI series and lost the one-off pink-ball Test at Perth by 10 wickets to the Aussies.“Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose but it’s very important what is coming forward and keeping your focus on that. Our main focus was T20 cricket, and I’m happy that in that, we did really well. We didn’t do well in the ODIs and the Test, but I think as a team we all came together and we all had very good discussions about how we have to go about when we play the next ODI (series) and Test match in the future,” the Indian captain said.Harmanpreet stressed that the focus of her side was firmly on the shortest format right now. “But the main task is the T20 World Cup and before that, we want to play really good cricket to get our confidence back again for the tournament. So, (doing well in) T20 (cricket) is the main target and before the T20 World Cup, we are playing some very good competitive cricket,” Harman asserted. The Indian skipper said that in the absence of the injured allrounder Amanjot Kaur, the team was pinning hopes on 22-year-old allrounder Kashvee Gautam, who has played six ODIs and a Test, but is yet to make her T20I debut, to perform that role in T20 cricket. “Kashvee is also someone who is very talented. She can contribute both batting and bowling and she is also a great fielder. So, having these kinds of players is very important and bringing her to T20 cricket is very important because now, as Aman is not here, and she (kashvee) is someone who can do really well for the team. So, I think this is a very important series for all the young players who haven’t played much international cricket, but giving them an opportunity here will make a lot of difference for us,” Harman said.
