The heat is soaring all across the UK, and the rising temperatures can make you think (or not) in bizarre ways. Even though that is far from the reason behind some of the decisions taken by India's team management at the ongoing Women's T20 World Cup 2026, questions remain about their team combinations, suggesting India may not have found their most ideal and winning combination yet.
The first sign came right after India's first game, in which they got a resounding victory against Pakistan, when they dropped Bharti Fulmali after just one chance, which lasted all of three balls, for Yastika Bhatia. It may have surprised some, even more so because captain Harmanpreet Kaur had told JioStar before leaving for the UK that India wanted to give "equal opportunity to all the players" to arrive at their best XI at the T20 World Cup.
If you stretch the timeline back slightly, it does feel like equal opportunities were handed to Fulmali and Bhatia before the lack of runs from both left India's decision-makers without a clear choice to pick one out of the two.
Fulmali was given two innings in the T20I series against South Africa two months ago, where she scored 40 and 2, and just the one against England recently, where she managed just 7 from No. 6. Once Bhatia returned to the side for the bilateral games against England after a long injury lay-off, she got all three games straightaway for much better scores of 54, 33 and 32. But come the T20 World Cup, Bhatia was on the bench, although also back in the XI one game later once Fulmali couldn't get going in India's opening match.
Even though Bhatia's score of 3 off four balls against Netherlands wouldn't have inspired any more confidence than Fulmali's knock, India did stick with her against South Africa. But they promoted her to No. 3, which pushed Jemimah Rodrigues out of her usual position. Bhatia scored 15 from 13 deliveries, and Rodrigues 12 off 14, and India wobbled with a collapse of 3 for 29 which only compounded their batting problems in the middle order.
"Every game that we get into, we go with a fresh slate, and we think about what's going to offer onto the pitch, what's going to be the opposition, and accordingly we choose our best XI," India's bowling coach Aavishkar Salvi had said before India's game against South Africa about the Bhatia-vs-Fulmali conundrum. "So basically, it's horses for courses that we focus upon. It's about on that day what [the] conditions required, [and] what is the opposition strategy. Accordingly, we put in the player."
A day before their must-win match against Bangladesh, both Bhatia and Fulmali participated in a near-equal measure of range-hitting near the centre wicket at Old Trafford to dispatch the ball regularly over the ropes. Along with Smriti Mandhana and Radha Yadav, they took turns to take throwdowns, and gave the impression that whoever would get the chance on Thursday was ready to belt some big hits. But does the frequent chopping and changing give the impression that India are a tad unsettled about their XI?
"I will say that you're playing the World Cup; anyone can get a chance," Shafali Verma said on Wednesday about India's changing combinations. "It's like this: if you don't perform well, then of course you'll sit out, and we all know that whoever performs will play. And we are all backing each other, whether someone is sitting out or someone is playing. We are all thinking that we have to win the match. But we are all backing each other. That's all I can say."
That India have fielded 14 players so far in this T20 World Cup - it's the joint-most with four other teams - has had a trickle affect till the bottom. For the allrounders' spots, India have been left ruing their luck with a spate of injuries to Pooja Vastrakar, Amanjot Kaur and Kashvee Gautam, and now more recently to Shreyanka Patil.
What further looks far from settled is what kind of pace attack India want to field in this tournament. Out of the quicks at their disposal, India have given two games so far to each of Arundhati Reddy, Kranti Gaud and Nandani Sharma, while not giving any match time to swing bowler Renuka Singh, who's the most experienced of all quicks. While Renuka has had her right shoulder strapped throughout this tournament and even wore a brace on her left knee earlier this week, Harmanpreet had clarified before India's campaign started that the whole squad was fit.
It is perhaps the lack of wickets for Renuka that has seen her fall out of favour. She averages 33.16 this year after taking six wickets from seven T20Is so far, and that average shot up to 64.50 in South Africa a couple of months ago, when she also leaked 9.21 runs an over.
While it was expected that India's spinners were to do the heavy-lifting during this tournament to take wickets, the fact that they've taken only two wickets from pace bowling, the fewest, doesn't bode well for the team. And both those wickets have been taken by Nandani, who didn't even have an India cap a month ago but is currently the team's most economical pace bowler.
While fine-tuning their team combinations, India not only need to find their most balanced attack depending on the opposition and conditions but also retain depth in their batting line-up. That could be one reason why they brought Reddy back in the XI against South Africa as they replaced Shreyanka with legspinner Prema Rawat and not bowling allrounder Radha.
As Australia await on Sunday for India's final league fixture at Lord's, India will know that their contest against Bangladesh holds not only two points at stake but also one decisive chance to make final adjustments and get closer to their final XI.