The third edition of the Women's Premier League (WPL) will get underway from February 14, with 22 matches to be played across four cities. The competition could allow a number of players to regain their spots or enter India's white-ball set-up in a home ODI World Cup year:
Shafali Verma (Delhi Capitals)
Shafali returned to domestic cricket after being dropped by India last November. She was the leading run-getter in the Senior Women's One Day Trophy (527 runs, 152.31 strike rate, 75.29 average) and the Senior Women's One Day Challenger Trophy (414 runs, 145.26 strike rate, 82.80 average). Few batters can attack the ball at the top of the order like Shafali does, and at DC, she has forged a successful opening partnership with Meg Lanning. Consistently with the bat could help Shafali seal an India comeback with a tour of England in July and then for the ODI World Cup at home to come.
"To be honest, the past few months have been tough for me," she said in a DC media release. "My father suffered a heart attack, and just a couple of days later, I was dropped from the ODI squad. I've realised that my job is to score runs whenever I get the opportunity, and that's where I want to focus. The only thing in my control is my preparation. If I train well and score runs, I know I can come back stronger."
Arundhati Reddy (Delhi Capitals)
Reddy was dropped from the India side despite making decent returns. She bagged seven wickets at the T20 World Cup last year, the joint-most for India. Then she played just one match on India's dismal tour of Australia, where she picked up 4 for 26 in Perth although India lost the ODIs 3-0. It was Reddy's WPL 2024 show with the ball for DC that had enabled her to make a national comeback.
She can move the ball both ways and has the ability to bowl a mean yorker. A return to familiar comforts of the WPL could help. With Pooja Vastrakar under an injury cloud, India could use a seam-bowling allrounder like Reddy in the side.
Kashvee Gautam (Gujarat Giants)
Gautam had first made headlines when she picked up ten wickets in an innings, including a hat-trick, for Chandigarh in an Under-19 one-dayer in 2020. Then, in December 2023, she was selected by GG for a record INR 2 crore at the auction. But an injury had ruled her out of WPL 2024. Gautam made a successful comeback in the domestic one-dayers earlier this season. A fast-bowling-allrounder, she can hit the deck hard and bowl at high speeds, a quality which India seemed to lack in the ODIs in Australia as well as in a few home games last season.
Saika Ishaque (Mumbai Indians)
Since the last ODI World Cup in 2022, India have tried six left-arm spinners, with none being able to cement their spots. While a good show with the ball for DC in WPL 2023 - ten wickets in nine matches, third-most for them - allowed Radha Yadav to make a comeback, a similar showing from Ishaque could help her add to her four international caps.
During the 2024-25 domestic season, Ishaque worked on her fitness and fielding skills while captaining Bengal to a runners-up finish in both white-ball domestic competitions. She also returned 17 wickets in the one-dayers, and 13 wickets in the T20s, both the most for Bengal.
Raghvi Bist (Royal Challengers Bengaluru)
A hard-hitting middle-order batter who bowls seam, Bist could well force herself into the reckoning for the World Cup if she has a memorable maiden season in the WPL. Bist has been vocal about her love for hitting sixes and helped Uttarakhand make the final of both the domestic T20s and the one-dayers in 2023-24. In 2024-25, along with Nandini Kashyap, who will play for DC, Bist helped Uttarakhand to the quarter-final of the T20 competition. There she scored 158 runs in seven innings at a strike rate of 129.50, and hit five sixes. Bist even bowls medium pace with a wrong-footed action.
Yastika Bhatia (Mumbai Indians)
The presence of a big-hitting finisher like Richa Ghosh may provide little or no scope for another wicketkeeper-batter in India's XI, but injuries haven't helped Bhatia's cause either. She played the three ODIs against New Zealand at home last October, but injured her wrist during her maiden WBBL stint afterwards, causing her to miss the tour of Australia.
Bhatia was not picked for the subsequent home series against West Indies and Ireland though she was fit, and was part of the Senior Women's One Day Challenger Trophy instead. Harleen Deol is the incumbent No. 3 for India, but Bhatia's ability to get off to quick starts could help her case. Bhatia's road to reclaiming her spot in the national side, at least as a back-up wicketkeeper, could pass through WPL 2025, where she will face some of the world's best bowlers while opening the batting for MI.