While the senior India women's squad prepares for the Women's Asia Cup in Dubai, a separate — and separately interesting — story is playing out at home. Yastika Bhatia, left out of Harmanpreet Kaur's 15 for the Asia Cup, has been named captain of India A's ODI and multi-day squads for a home multi-format series against Australia A, with Anushka Sharma leading the India A T20 side.
India A's T20 squad is led by Anushka Sharma, with Sayali Satghare as vice-captain, alongside Vrinda Dinesh, Sujata Dey, Tejal Hasabnis, Nikki Prasad, Shipra Giri, Shweta Sehrawat, Uma Chetry, Tanuja Kanwer, Minnu Mani, Vaishnavi Sharma, Jintimani Kalita and Shabnam Shakeel. For the one-day and multi-day legs, Yastika Bhatia captains and keeps wicket, with Anushka Sharma as her vice-captain — the two squads share a large core, including Priya Punia, Tanisha Singh, Nikki Prasad and Vaishnavi Sharma, with specialists like Shubha Satheesh and Sushree Dibyadarshini added for the longer multi-day format.
Bhatia's absence from the Asia Cup squad was notable on its own — she is not part of Harmanpreet's 15, which is built around Richa Ghosh and Gunalan Kamalini behind the stumps. Handing her the India A captaincy for a multi-format series against a touring Australia A side is the selectors' way of keeping a senior, previously capped player match-sharp and visibly in the selection conversation, rather than leaving her out of the picture entirely during the Asia Cup window.
It's easy to overlook A-team cricket next to a continental tournament, but these are exactly the series that shape the next 12-18 months of squad depth. Australia A tours are traditionally tough, well-coached opposition — a genuine test rather than a formality — and a strong series from Bhatia with bat and gloves, or from a T20 player like Shweta Sehrawat, is the kind of form that gets noticed well before the next senior squad announcement.
Between the senior side in Dubai and this India A group at home, India have a genuinely wide net out for the women's game right now — a reflection of how much depth the system has added since the T20 World Cup win in March. Watching who converts A-team form into senior selection over the next few months is arguably a more useful long-term storyline than any single Asia Cup result.
For the senior squad's Asia Cup campaign, see our full squad analysis and tournament schedule guide. Fixture dates and venues for the India A-Australia A series will be added to SportGod's matches page as they're confirmed.
Squad lists verified against official BCCI announcements, current as of August 27-28, 2026.
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