WATCH: Rain doesn’t dampen players’ spirits as India kick off Women’s World Cup preparatory camp in Vizag

The monsoon season in India has been in overdrive currently in most parts of the country. Major cities, including Delhi, Mumbai, Pune and several other parts of the north, west, central, eastern and southern parts of India have been affected. It was the case with Visakhapatnam as well, as the Indian women’s team kicked off its preparatory camp ahead of the Australia series and the World Cup next month. However, rain didn’t dampen the players’ spirits and mood, as they got on with the practice. 

The fielding coach, Munish Bali, led the practice session as he gave the option to players, whether to skip the training and stay indoors with the rain outside, or have some fun fielding sessions and the players chose the latter. Bali then explained it further that rain might make the ball wet and a bit softer and hence, two different fielding drills were kept, one for flat catches and the other for the long ones.

Smriti Mandhana, skipper Harmanpreet Kaur, Richa Ghosh, Jemimah Rodrigues, Sneh Rana and Deepti Sharma, among others, were visible taking it pretty comfortably. India have more than a couple of weeks before the three-match ODI series against Australia kicks off in Mullanpur on September 14.

Watch the video here:

India announced their squad mostly on the expected lines with pacer Renuka Singh Thakur returning to the fold. Sayali Satghare was added to the squad for the Australia series in place of the all-rounder Amanjot Kaur, who is still recovering from her injury at the NCA. The rest of the 14 players are the same for both the assignments and a series against an opponent like Australia would help India fine-tune their preparations and the hosts will be battle-hardened for the multi-nation tournament.

India begin their World Cup campaign on September 30 in Guwahati against co-hosts Sri Lanka.