Bisht, Gayakwad back in India's T20 squad for Asia Cup

Left-arm spinners Ekta Bisht and Rajeshwari Gayakwad are back in India's T20 squad for the Women's Asia Cup. Seam-bowling allrounder Rumeli Dhar and left-arm spinner Radha Yadav have missed out on selection for the tournament, which will be held in Malaysia from June 1 to 11.

Injury had ruled both Bisht and Gayakwad out of India's last T20 assignment, the home tri-series in March that also featured Australia and England. Gayakwad was part of the initial squad as a replacement for Bisht, who had injured her left index finger during the ODI series against Australia, only to herself suffer a split webbing in her right hand during a fielding session. Radha replaced Gayakwad and played two games in the tri-series, taking three wickets.

Both Bisht and Gayakwad came back for the three-match ODI series against England in early April.

Dhar was part of the T20 tri-series squad, and played just the one game, before being left out of the squad for the ODIs against England. She returned to India colours after a six-year gap when she was called up to India's T20 squad for their tour of South Africa in February. Since then, she has played three T20Is, picking up three wickets at an average of 25.33 and conceding 8.29 runs per over.

Apart from India, the six-team Asia Cup will feature Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Thailand, and Malaysia. Each team will play the other once, with the top two teams on the points table qualifying for the final on June 11.

India women squad for Asia Cup: Harmanpreet Kaur (capt), Smriti Mandhana, Mithali Raj, Jemimah Rodrigues, Deepti Sharma, Anuja Patil, Veda Krishnamurthy, Taniya Bhatia (wk), Jhulan Goswami, Pooja Vastrakar, Shikha Pandey, Poonam Yadav, Rajeshwari Gayakwad, Ekta Bisht, Mona Meshram