Anjum Chopra warns Indian women’s cricket lacks depth in every department

Speaking to PTI in New Delhi, former Indian women’s captain Anjum Chopra made it clear that the debate around Harmanpreet Kaur’s captaincy is missing the bigger picture. "Why are we even talking about a change in captaincy? You can hand the armband to anyone, but that won’t magically lift the performances of the other ten players," she said.

Chopra, now 49, stressed that the problem runs deeper than leadership. "If changing captains were the cure, we’d be rotating the job every series," she added with a half‑smile, hinting at the futility of a quick‑fix approach.

According to her, the current core group is solid, but beyond it the bench is painfully thin. "We’re short on pace, we’re short on spin, and we’re short on quality batting in both the top and middle order," she explained. She listed the few names on the fringe – Sneh Rana, Deepti Sharma, Shree Charani and the young Radha Yadav – but admitted they are not enough to build a resilient squad.

Chopra also reflected on the 2025 ODI World Cup, recalling how the team had no ready‑to‑go 13th player. When Pratika Rawat got injured, a youngster from Surat’s domestic circuit, Shafali Verma, was hauled straight into the playing eleven. "We had to scrape for a replacement from outside the set‑up," she noted, calling the episode a stark illustration of the depth issue.

She argued that to compete for World Cups and championships, India needs a pool of players who can step in at a moment’s notice. "Australia shows us how it’s done – they pick ‘options’, not just players. Every slot in their XI has at least two genuine contenders," Chopra observed, using the Australian model as a benchmark.

In her view, building such a reservoir will take time. "Our talent‑pipeline has to be engineered the same way, otherwise we’ll keep stumbling over the same lack of alternatives," she concluded.