India Women host Zimbabwe Women for the first time in a bilateral series in cricket history, opening a three-match T20I leg at Raipur on October 16. It is also the first match of Smriti Mandhana's tenure as India's full-time captain across formats, after Harmanpreet Kaur stepped down from the role earlier this month while remaining in the squad as a player.
Mandhana's appointment ended Harmanpreet's stint in charge, which included the title at the 2025 ODI World Cup on home soil and a second straight Asian Games gold in September. Shafali Verma has been named vice-captain for this T20I series, while Deepti Sharma takes on the deputy's role for the ODI leg that follows. Harmanpreet stays in both squads as a batter, giving Mandhana access to the same experienced top order she has shared a dressing room with for years, just not led until now.
Jemimah Rodrigues is unavailable as she continues to recover from a hamstring injury, one of the more notable absences from a squad that otherwise carries much of India's recent white-ball depth. Shreyanka Patil, Renuka Singh Thakur, Radha Yadav and Bharti Fulmali — all part of the Asian Games squad last month — have been left out of this T20I group, suggesting India's selectors are using the series to widen their look at the squad ahead of the ODI leg, which forms part of the ICC Women's Championship 2025-29.
Zimbabwe, captained by Josephine Nkomo, have kept the same group that featured in their recent series against West Indies Women. As the clear underdogs stepping into a first-ever meeting with India, Zimbabwe will be looking for the kind of batting discipline through the middle overs that has let them compete with higher-ranked sides in patches this year, rather than any expectation of an upset across the three matches.
Beyond the result, a new captain's first series is always worth watching for the small tactical signatures a leader leaves early — bowling changes, field settings, batting order tweaks. Mandhana inherits a side with genuine depth, and how she uses it at Raipur, Vadodara's T20I return leg, and into the ODI series starting October 23, will start to answer what her captaincy looks like in practice.
Mandhana's own captaincy bump alongside her usual opening-order output makes her a strong captaincy pick for fantasy teams across the series. Harmanpreet Kaur, free of the responsibilities of the armband, and Shafali Verma in a leadership role of her own, are both worth consideration for sides looking for middle-order or top-order value against a Zimbabwe attack still building its experience at this level.
Live scores from Raipur are available on SportGod's live matches page, with build-your-team tools on SportGod's free fantasy games and more women's cricket coverage on the SportGod blog.
Squad and schedule details in this article are verified against same-day and freshly re-checked reporting as of October 15, 2026; the playing XI for the October 16 fixture was not yet confirmed at the time of writing.
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