Tauranga, March 6 : India won the toss and elected to bat against Pakistan in their opening match of the ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup at the Bay Oval here on Sunday. India skipper Mithali Raj said, “It’s a good wicket to bat, put up a big total and put pressure on them. We’re going with three seamers and three spinners. We want to go into the tournament with a clean slate, take some momentum from the last game which we won against New Zealand. The hunger to do well in World Cups has kept me going.” “We wanted to bowl first, we now need to restrict them. We are going into the match with five bowlers. We have had a good warm-up, so we need to continue playing like that. I’m blessed to be back doing what I love, and getting some real support from the entire team,” said Pakistan captain Bismah Maroof. Playing XIs: India – Smriti Mandhana, Shafali Verma, Deepti Sharma, Harmanpreet Kaur, Mithali Raj (c), Richa Ghosh (wk), Sneh Rana, Jhulan Goswami, Meghna Singh, Pooja Vastrakar, Rajeshwari Gayakwad. Pakistan – Bismah Maroof (c), Sidra Amin, Javeria Khan, Omaima Sohail, Nida Dar, Aliya Riaz, Fatima Sana, Sidra Nawaz (wk), Diana Baig, Nashra Sandhu, Anam Amin.
With agency inputs
