After a long hiatus, women’s cricket is now back in Chennai. The conditions are unknown to both teams: South Africa has only played one match in Chennai, a T20 World Cup match in 2016, and India hasn’t played here since a Quadrangular Series in 2007.
However, India enters this match having defeated both of those elite teams handily in their Test match against Australia and England from December before. These victories were mostly attributed to India’s spinners, which will provide the host team a significant advantage in this Test given the predicted spin-friendly conditions.
India’s resource base has only grown over the past few months. They gave numerous youngsters their first call-ups, and four players—who have depth in both the batting and bowling departments—trained at the National Cricket Academy specifically for the red-ball format. In the December Tests, their offspin-all-rounders Sneh Rana and Deepti Sharma produced game-winning performances, and their batsmen amassed two first-inning totals of 400 or more in both games. In March and April, the majority of the international players participated in the Senior Women’s Inter-zonal multi-day series.
India will enter the Test with confidence after defeating South Africa in the ODI series. Smriti Mandhana, their backbone, was in excellent form, while players like Deepti Sharma and Arundhati Reddy were also impressive with the ball.
Conversely, South Africa, who lost to Australia in Perth in February by an innings margin, will be playing their second Test of the year. Before this Test, they haven’t adequately prepared with the red ball either. South Africa just had a few days to get used to the situation, and the format is not a part of their local system. They faced more spin than pace during their lengthy net sessions over the past two days against the boys’ Under-14 and Under-16 teams from Tamil Nadu.
Laura Wolvaardt, the captain of South Africa, stated that the “biggest challenge” will be adjusting to the ball by “staying low and turning a bit” on the eve of the Test. Nonkululeko Mlaba, who bowled offspin in the second ODI, is one of their options for left-arm spin, and Sune Luus is also expected to bowl, according to Marizanne Kapp.
Taking everything into account, India has the upper hand heading into the single Test.
Lately, Deepti Sharma has been playing excellent all-around. She finished the Test match against England with a match total of 9 for 39, including an incredible 5 for 7 in the opening innings. She also put up a strong Indian batting performance in that game, scoring 67. Following that, Deepti Sharma amassed 78 runs and claimed two wickets in the match against Australia. In three games in the Inter-zonal multi-day Trophy for East Zone, she took 27 wickets and scored 157 runs, demonstrating her exceptional form in domestic cricket as well.
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