Why was Radha Yadav recalled
With Amanjot Kaur and later Kashvee Gautam around, India did not need their left-arm spinners to necessarily be allrounders. N Shree Charani has established herself as the primary choice over the past year in both white-ball formats and India also handed Vaishnavi Sharma a cap in both ODIs and T20Is.
In the meantime, Radha used WPL 2026 to showcase her ability. She scored her maiden WPL fifty while batting at No. 5 for Royal Challengers Bengaluru. She also returned an economy rate of 7.78 in a tournament which saw some high scores, but for only two wickets, and missed the tours of Australia and South Africa.
The recent injuries to Amanjot (in Australia) and Gautam (in South Africa), helped Radha’s cause.
Bhatia wins the game of musical chairs
She has been out of action since August 2025 and underwent an ACL surgery last October. But once she regained fitness, the selectors saw in Bhatia not just a wicketkeeper but also a top-order batting option as she has batted in the top three in seven of her 14 T20I innings.
“Yastika is a little more experienced,” Amita said. “Apart from [being] a wicketkeeper, she gives us a top-order batter option, so we went with Yastika.”
What titled the scales in Fulmali’s favour?
Amanjot’s absence was a double whammy for India. It robbed them of an extra seam option, and a lower-middle-order batter. Power-hitters who can finish games off are still hard to find in India; Ghosh has been shouldering that responsibility in the last few years, but India would ideally want another boundary-hitter in the lower order to share the burden with Ghosh.
“Amanjot was our key player. It was very difficult to find someone in her place but we tried someone like Bharti,” Harmanpreet said. “Bharti has done really well in domestic cricket. She has proven herself. She has done well in the WPL and won her team a few crucial matches.
“We needed a batter at No. 6 or 7, and she fits that slot completely. She did well in one of the two opportunities she got [in South Africa].”
In her latest avatar, Fulmali has transformed herself into a dangerous finisher. She struck at 172.72 in WPL 2025 and at 146.91 in WPL 2026 batting in the middle and lower-middle order for Gujarat Giants. For context, Ghosh’s strike rate in the WPL this year was 151.20 and Harmanpreet’s was 150.66. More notable was that Fulmali hit eight sixes in the 81 balls she faced in this year’s WPL. That paved the way for an India comeback, and a maiden T20 World Cup appearance beckons.
“The one middle-order slot that we had, we felt that Fulmali was a better fit,” Amita said. “Harleen [Deol] is still in our scheme of things but in T20s we felt Fulmali was a better option for that role.”
S Sudarshanan is a sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo. @Sudarshanan7
