table of contents
The ICC Women’s T20 World Cup 2026 is scheduled to begin on June 12 and India will play its first match against arch-rivals Pakistan on June 14. Ahead of the opening of the tournament, former India opening batsman, now a cricket expert and commentator, Aakash Chopra offers a detailed preview on whether the Indian women’s team can claim the throne at the global event.
Needless to say, the 12-team competition is going to be extremely entertaining and competitive. Along with home country England, there are several teams who have enough firepower to reach the final of the T20 World Cup 2026.
Can India win the Women’s T20 World Cup?
Can India win the tournament? Expectations will be high from the Harmanpreet Kaur-led team as they won the ODI World Cup. Kaur and her girls will try to repeat the same.
According to Aakash Chopra, the Women in Blue’s chances of winning the T20I competition will depend on their performance during the powerplay throughout the tournament. Chopra advised India to perform well with both bat and ball during the powerplay.
The focus will be on the opening pair of Smriti Mandhana and Shafali Verma.
The stakes will be higher when the vice-captains, Smriti Mandhana and Shafali Verma take the field to open the innings. The future of the team can be affected by the performance of the openers.
“Indian girls have won the 50-over World Cup. Can they win the 20-over World Cup? That’s the big question. This is a good team. Where can you win T20 games? One is that you control the powerplay with the bat and the ball. With the bat, Shafali Verma’s consistent avatar is very good,” the former cricketer said on his YouTube channel ‘Aakash Chopra’.
“Smriti Mandhana will be there with them. Smriti Mandhana is a whole other animal in England. She has scored a lot of runs there. So, Smriti Mandhana and Shafali Verma, as your powerplay players, can really control the game. One of them should bat deep in the innings, which they can,” he said.
The Women in Blue will have to score runs in the death overs as well. Richa Ghosh and Harmanpreet Kaur will have to take the responsibility of scoring maximum runs in the last few overs of the innings.
Aakash Chopra said, “Then there is Yastika Bhatia, Jemimah Rodrigues, Harmanpreet Kaur and Richa Ghosh. The responsibility of the last five overs will be on Richa Ghosh and Harmanpreet Kaur. You will hope that Deepti Sharma continues to play in the same aggressive manner that she has started doing in the WPL. It seems that we are really quite prepared with the bat. We are as good with the bat as any other World Cup team.”
Aakash Chopra also wants to see pacers in England
Chopra expects the Indian fast bowlers to play a key role in this T20 World Cup as traditionally, fast bowlers get extra help from the English conditions.
He said, “In bowling, again, in the powerplay overs, whether it is Renuka Singh Thakur, Arundhati Reddy, or Kranti Gaur, the focus will be on her. Even if Nandini Sharma plays, she will have a big role in the death overs. Since it is England and it will swing, Renuka Singh Thakur’s value increases.”