Bangladesh won the toss and elected to bat first against India
Nigar Sultana, the Bangladesh captain, won the toss and chose to bat first in order to put pressure on India in the first semi-final of the 2024 Women’s Asia Cup in Dambulla.
They made one change from their previous victory over Malaysia, bringing in fast bowler Marufa Akter in place of Sabikun Jesmin. This decision meant that Marufa would partner the experienced seamer Jahanara Alam, as Bangladesh altered their strategy to include two specialist seamers alongside their spinners.
India made a surprising move by including young wicketkeeper-batter Uma Chetry as a specialist batter in place of D Hemalatha. Meanwhile, Pooja Vastrakar returned to the pace department in place of Arundhati Reddy, maintaining the same spin attack with Tanuja Kanwar retaining her place.
Harmanpreet Kaur also returned to the Indian team after missing the previous group game, replacing S Sajana.
Bangladesh will be looking to replicate their success from the 2018 Asia Cup final when they defeated India. However, India had the upper hand in their recent T20I series in Bangladesh, winning all five matches convincingly.
India: 1 Smriti Mandhana, 2 Shafali Verma, Uma Chetry, 4 Harmanpreet Kaur (capt), 5 Jemimah Rodrigues, 6 Richa Ghosh (wk), 7 Deepti Sharma, 8 Pooja Vastrakar, 9 Radha Yadav, 10 Tanuja Kanwar, 11 Renuka Singh
Bangladesh: 1 Dilara Akter, 2 Murshida Khatun, 3 Nigar Sultana (capt, wk), 4 Rumana Ahmed, 5 Ishma Tanjim, 6 Ritu Moni, 7 Rabeya Khatun, 8 Shorna Akter, 9 Nahida Akter, 10 Jahanara Alam, 11 Marufa Akter
