A part of the Commonwealth Games program for the first time, women’s cricket was one of the most sought-after tickets in Birmingham, particularly for Sunday’s absorbing final between top-ranked Australia and cricket-mad India. “You just have to look how many people came out and watched every single game even when England wasn’t playing,” said Australia’s Ashleigh Gardner. “It was amazing to see people just supporting women’s cricket.

“I guess that was the best thing about this whole event was growing the game globally.” Chasing 162, India looked to be in control when they were 118-2 midway through the 15th over but suffered a collapse after losing three wickets in quick succession, including key player Jemimah Rodrigues (33) and captain Harmanpreet Kaur (65).

India’s lower batting order could not keep up with the pressure and was bowled out for 152 in the final over, with Australians Gardner taking 3-16 and Megan Schutt 2-27. It was yet another achievement for the dominant Australians, who won the last two T20 World Cups in 2018 and 2020 and the 50-over World Cup earlier this year. “I think that match today was worthy of a gold medal match,” said Jess Jonassen.

Earlier on Sunday New Zealand took the bronze after they comfortably defeated England by eight wickets, thanks to an excellent bowling performance. Hayley Jensen took 3-24, while Fran Jonas and Sophie Devine picked up two wickets each as England tumbled to 110-9 from their 20 overs. New Zealand captain Devine then scored an unbeaten 51 to wrap up their chase of 111 within 12 overs.
“This Commonwealth game has been an incredible experience,” offered England captain Nat Sciver. “The crowds have shown that people love coming to watch.

“I’d love for cricket to be in the Olympics.”
So would the International Cricket Council (ICC) which is reportedly spending $3 million on lobbying efforts to get the sport onto the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics program.

The Indian Cricket Board-BCCI named a 15-member squad for next month’s three-match series on Saturday night. Washington Sundar and Kuldeep Yadav have also returned to the team.

Zimbabwe’s tour ends four days before the start of the Asia Cup in the United Arab Emirates. That is probably why many first-choice players were not kept on the team. Among them are regular captain Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Rishabh Pant, Hardik Pandya, Jasprit Bumrah, and Ravindra Jadeja. Shikhar Dhawan will be the captain again. Rohit, Kohli, Pant, Pandya, and Bumrah were not in the team for the last ODI series on the West Indies tour. Even though he was on the team, Jadeja was knocked out due to injury. Shreyas Iyer, Suryakumar Yadav, Arshdeep Singh, and Yuzvendra Chahal have been dropped from that team for the Zimbabwe tour.

Chahar last played for India last February, in a T20 against the West Indies on home soil. In the last match of that series, he pulled a leg muscle. Later, he suffered a fresh back injury while rehabilitating at the National Cricket Academy in Bangalore. As a result, he did not play for Chennai Super Kings in IPL. Chennai bought him in the auction for Rs 14 crore.
Tripathi was recently called up to the Indian team for the first time for the T20I tour of Ireland. However, he has not played any match for the national team.

India will face Zimbabwe in the first ODI on August 18 at the Harare Sports Club ground. The next two matches on the same ground will be on August 20 and 22. And the Asia Cup starts on August 27.

India ODI Squad: Shikhar Dhawan (captain), Ruturaj Gaikwad, Shubman Gill, Deepak Hooda, Rahul Tripathi, Ishan Kishan, (wicketkeeper), Sanju Samson, Washington Sundar, Shardul Thakur, Kuldeep Yadav, Akshar Patel, Avesh Khan, Prasidh Krishna, Mohammad Siraj, Deepak Chahar.