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Indian team arrives in South Africa

Submitted by rickeyre on March 5, 2002 - 4:00pm

The Indian women's cricket team commenced its first tour to the African continent when it flew into Johannesburg on Monday March 4. The tour is, in fact, the first official visit by any international women's team to South Africa since 1972.

United Cricket Board chief executive Gerald Majola greeted the team on its arrival. The Indian team will play a practice match against an Invitational XI on Wednesday before the four-game one-day international series commences the following day at Lenasia Cricket Stadium near Soweto. Remaining matches in the series will be played on March 9 (Potchefstroom), 13 (Centurion) and 16 (Green Point, Cape Town).

The tour will conclude with a four-day one-off Test match in Paarl from March 19 to 22. This will be South Africa's first women's Test in the post-apartheid era.

The South African squad for the series against India has a couple of changes from the one originally announced in November. Experienced team-members Linda Olivier and Helen Davies are both missing from the squad of fifteen, replaced by Tamara Reeves and Madelein Lotter.

Indian squad: Anjum Chopra (capt), Mithali Raj, Anju Jain, Neetu David, Jhulan Goswami, Sunita Singh, Deepa Kulkarni, Bindeshwari Goel, Jaya Sharma, Mamatha Maben, Arundhati Kirkire, Sulakshana Naik, Hemlata Kala, Amrita Shinde, Nooshin Al-Khadeer.

South African squad: Cindy Eksteen (capt), Alison Hodgkinson (vc), Josephine Barnard, Zelda Brits, Madelein Lotter, Kerri Laing, Nolubabalo Ndzundzu, Tamara Reeves, Shafeeqa Pillay, Denise Reid, Daleen Terblanche, Yulande van der Merwe, Sune van Zyl, Sunette Viljoen, Leoni du Plessis.