Bangladesh bring in Moni and bat first in second T20I; Hemalatha in for India

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India comfortably won the opening game to lead the five-match series 1-0

India won the first T20I  •  BCB

Toss: Bangladesh opt to bat vs India

Bangladesh captain Nigar Sultana won the toss and decided to bat against India in the second T20I in Sylhet.

Both the teams made one change each to the XIs that played on Sunday, with spin-bowling allrounder D Hemalatha coming in for Yastika Bhatia, who was out with a niggle after being India’s top-scorer in the first game with a 29-ball 36. For Bangladesh, the experienced pace allrounder Ritu Moni replaced spin-bowling allrounder Shorna Akther.

Hemalatha forced her way to the India squad through her performances in WPL 2024, for Gujarat Giants. She last featured in a T20I in September 2022 and will be looking make most of the opportunities in this series to be in contention for the T20 World Cup to be held later this year. With Jemimah Rodrigues missing the series due to back niggle, Hemalatha might move up the order after having mostly played in the middle order for India. In the 16 T20Is that she had played, she has batted at one-drop only twice, in 2022.

India comfortably won the opening game to lead the five-match series 1-0.

India XI: Shafali Verma, Smriti Mandhana, D Hemalatha, Harmanpreet Kaur (capt), Richa Ghosh (wk), Deepti Sharma, S Sajana, Pooja Vastrakar, Renuka Singh Thakur, Shreyanka Patil, Radha Yadav

Bangladesh XI: Dilara Akter, Murshida Khatun, Sobhana Mostary, Nigar Sultana (capt, wk), Ritu Moni, Fahima Khatun, Rabeya Khan, Nahida Akter, Sultana Khatun, Marufa Akter, Fariha Trishna

Srinidhi Ramanujam is a sub-editor with ESPNcricinfo