India look for consolation win against White Ferns in final T20

Hamilton, Feb 9 (IANS) The Indian women's team will look to get their act together and score at least a consolation win when they take on New Zealand in the third and final T20 International here Sunday.

Skipper Harmanpreet Kaur will want her batters to put up a better show with the series already lost.

The Indian team management decided to drop team's senior batswoman Mithali Raj, who is no longer considered a force to reckon with in the shortest format.

India lost the last two games by 23 runs and four wickets, respectively. The worrying factor, however, is that in both the ties, India could not manage more than 140 runs.

For Indians, except Smriti Mandhana and Jemimah Rodrigues, none of the batswomen could deliver.

Debutant Priya Punia's lack of experience has been evident but what hurt the 'women-in-blue' most was skipper Kaur's poor form.

She scored 17 and 5 in the first two games and looked rusty.

Coming to the hosts, Amy Satterthwaite's side have improved after the ODI series loss with senior batswoman Suzie Bates scoring 57 in the final one dayer and a match-winning 62 in the second T20 International.

Squads:

India: Harmanpreet Kaur(Captain), Smriti Mandhana, Mithali Raj, Jemimah Rodrigues, Deepti Sharma, Taniya Bhatia, Poonam Yadav, Radha Yadav, Anuja Patil, Ekta Bisht, Dayalan Hemalatha, Mansi Joshi, Arundhati Reddy, Shikha Pandey, Priya Punia.

New Zealand: Amy Satterthwaite (Captain), Suzie Bates, Bernadine Bezuidenhout, Sophie Devine, Hayley Jensen, Caitlin Gurrey, Leigh Kasperek, Amelia Kerr, Frances Mackay, Katey Martin, Rosemary Mair, Hannah Rowe, Lea Tahuhu.