South Africa women opt to bowl v India women

South Africa women won the toss and opted to bowl in the first T20I of the five-match series against India women in Surat. Fifteen year old attacking batsman from Haryana, Shafali Verma, was handed a debut by India.

The second-youngest player to represent the India women's team after Gargi Banerjee, Shafali had impressed in the Women's T20 Challenge in May, preceding which she had set the 2018-19 senior women's inter-state T20 tournament alight, making 186 runs in six innings at a strike rate of 187.87, including a 128 off 56 balls against Nagaland. South Africa also handed a debut to slow left-arm spinner Nonkululeko Mlaba.

India captain Harmanpreet Kaur was quite happy to be asked to bat by her counterpart Sune Luus, saying that she would have done so anyway, before adding that the team was looking to try different combinations leading up to ICC Women's T20 World Cup.

India XI: Shafali Verma, Smriti Mandhana, JI Rodrigues, H Kaur (capt), P Vastrakar, Poonam Yadav, DB Sharma, V Krishnamurthy, T Bhatia (wk), RP Yadav, S Pandey

South Africa XI:L Lee (wk), T Brits, L Wolvaardt, N de Klerk, M du Preez, S Luus (capt), N Shangase, N Mlaba, S Ismail, A Khaka, TS Sekhukhune