Harmanpreet 'really excited' for Test homecoming despite limited preparation time

How do you prepare for a home Test match when you have not done it for nearly a decade, and you have only done it once in a 14-year international career?

That is the big challenge facing Harmanpreet Kaur. India's captain has had a glittering international career, playing in 285 internationals, and has become a globetrotting superstar in leagues across the world - she is currently the only Indian player playing in the WBBL in Australia.

Extraordinarily, though, Harmanpreet will play more home Tests in two weeks in December, against England and Australia in Mumbai, than she has in her previous 14 years at international level. The only home Test in her career came back in 2014 against South Africa where she took nine wickets in a huge innings victory. She has only played one Test match since then, full stop, in 2021 against England, and three Tests in her career overall.

Making the task harder is the preparation. She won't leave Australia until after Melbourne Renegades' final game at the MCG against Melbourne Stars on Saturday night. She will then have just ten days to prepare for the start of the three-match T20I series against England that precedes the Test that starts on December 14.

"The Test series is something which we are really looking forward to because I haven't played in front of a home crowd [since 2014], so I'm really excited for that," Harmanpreet told ESPNcricinfo. "The challenge for us is that we haven't played with the red ball. We have been playing with the white ball for so many years, even in domestic cricket also we don't have red-ball cricket back home. So the challenge for us is to make yourself ready in such a short time."

Harmanpreet's Renegades team-mates are facing the same preparation pressures with England's Tammy Beaumont and Australia's Georgia Wareham both aiming to play in the respective Test matches against India with similarly compromised preparations. Although they have more recent Test experience, with Beaumont making a stunning double-century in the Ashes this year.

There had been hopes from Australia's standpoint that their bowlers would get some Test-match practice in during the WBBL in order to increase their loads. They actually trained with pink balls during the October ODI series against West Indies in anticipation of a day-night Test in India, but that was subsequently changed to a red-ball game.

But the WBBL schedule is so tightly packed with 14 games in six weeks and a huge travel burden, that it has been difficult to find time. Harmanpreet had grand designs on getting some red-ball practice in while in Australia, but the weekly grind of play, travel, play, travel with very little training in between has made that impossible to implement.

"I had that thought if I can simultaneously do some red-ball practice also, but because it's such a packed schedule you can't mix things," Harmanpreet said. "We're playing T20 cricket and the Test game is a totally different kind of game, so I didn't want to mix it. When I'm going back, I have ten days to prepare myself."

Harmanpreet missed India's last Test against Australia on the Gold Coast in late 2021 because of a thumb injury. But she said she spent a lot of that match observing how the game unfolded to try and get a sense of how to play long-form cricket and how to lead her side tactically.

But in the short term, her focus is on finishing the season well with Renegades. It has been a disastrous tournament for a team that had high expectations coming into the WBBL off the back of recruiting three of the world's most in-form players in Harmanpreet, Beaumont and Hayley Matthews. Renegades are anchored to the bottom of the table with just two wins from 12 games.

However, they have a chance to finish the season well. Firstly, against Hobart Hurricanes at Bellerive Oval on Thursday, before finishing with the Melbourne Derby at the MCG on Saturday, which will be part of the WBBL's stadium series. It is the first time the WBBL has held a standalone fixture at the MCG. There have been games there in the past, but they have been part of double-headers with men's BBL matches.

The Melbourne derby will be the first women's game at the MCG since the historic 2020 T20 World Cup final, where Harmanpreet captained India against Australia. She said she was thrilled to get the chance to return to the venue and play there again.

"It's always an honour to play here at one of the best stadiums to play," Harmanpreet said. "When we played the T20 World Cup final here, and before that in some games against Australia, it's been always amazing. And now again this season we are getting the opportunity to play here and I'm really looking forward to that."