India won the toss and chose to bat against Pakistan at Edgbaston in the Women’s T20 World Cup, with the captains not shaking hands before the match. Harmanpreet Kaur and Fatima Sana stood in the middle for the toss, and the coin fell India’s way ahead of a scheduled 14.30pm BST start.
That brief pre-match moment carried extra weight because India and Pakistan were meeting in Group 1, with a big crowd expected in Birmingham and the fixture always drawing attention beyond the cricket itself. Harmanpreet had said before the game that India were there for cricket and only talked about cricket, setting a clear tone for the day.
India’s XI included Smriti Mandhana, Shafali Verma, Jemimah Rodrigues, Harmanpreet, Bharti Fulmali, Richa Ghosh, Deepti Sharma, Arundhati Reddy, Kranti Gaud, Shree Charani and Shreyanka Patil. Pakistan’s XI featured Muneeba Ali, Gull Feroza, Ayesha Zafar, Saira Jabeen, Natalia Pervaiz, Aliya Riaz, Fatima, Rameen Shamim, Nashra Sandhu, Sadia Iqbal and Tasmia Rubab, giving the match a full cast of 11 players on each side.
Even so, the scene before the first ball did not quite fit the neat line that this was only about cricket. The handshake was absent at the toss, and that detail sat alongside the political backdrop that has long shadowed meetings between the sides, even as the build-up at Edgbaston was described as quieter than the men’s tournament earlier in the year. The cricket was about to start, but the atmosphere had already said enough.
Taha Hashim was on the ground for the live coverage, while Bangladesh’s last-over win against the Netherlands was still being discussed at Edgbaston before India and Pakistan took the field. For Harmanpreet, the next step was simple enough: the match was set to begin at 14.30pm BST, and the first innings would show whether India’s choice to bat would make the strongest early statement of all.
