Yastika Bhatia’s elevation to India A captaincy for the One-Day and Multi-Day legs against Australia A changes little for Trinbago Knight Riders on the field, because Trinidad and Tobago have already secured a direct spot in the final. The tournament’s second-highest run scorer departs after topping the group stage unbeaten, with Sushma Verma stepping in as her replacement. TKR do not need a playoff win to reach the final; they simply wait for an opponent, while Verma’s numbers now carry the weight of the gloves.
BCCI Selection Committee Confirms Captaincy Switch
The BCCI Women’s Selection Committee announced on August 27, 2026, that Bhatia will lead India A’s One-Day and Multi-Day squads against Australia A, while Anushka Sharma takes over the T20 leg. The split means Bhatia only joins up once the three-match T20 series in New Chandigarh, played on September 12, 15 and 17, is finished, since Anushka runs that leg without her. Her actual workload starts with three One-Dayers at the PCA Stadium in Mohali on September 20, 22 and 25, before a Multi-Day fixture in Dharamshala from September 29 to October 2.
TKR officially confirmed on September 15, 2026, that Sushma Verma will replace Bhatia for the rest of their WCPL 2026 campaign. The timing works out cleanly: Bhatia’s first India A assignment does not begin until September 20, three days after TKR’s WCPL 2026 final, so the change affects preparation time and travel planning rather than costing TKR a specific fixture.
WCPL 2026 Yastika Bhatia India A
Bhatia leaves the competition with the second-highest run tally at the time of her exit. She made 35 off 28 balls against Barbados Tridents at Kensington Oval on September 5, then followed it with an unbeaten 57 off 34 balls against Jamaica Empress on September 10, striking at 167.64 with six fours and three sixes. Across two innings, one of them not out, that adds up to 92 runs at an average of 92.00.
Those numbers were built on partnerships as much as her own strokeplay. She added 67 with Laura Harris in the opener, then 35 more with Harris before an unbroken 69 with Deandra Dottin in the second match. It is the kind of returns that made her the busiest bat at the top of TKR’s order before the call-up arrived.
Sushma Verma’s Case for the Gloves
Verma has not played international cricket since an ODI against South Africa Women in March 2021, and she was left out of the XI during the 2023 T20I tri-series involving South Africa and West Indies. Her only franchise T20 experience came at the WPL 2023 with Gujarat Giants, where she managed 42 runs in five innings at a strike rate of 79.24, numbers that do little to settle any nerves about her white-ball form.
The domestic season tells a different story. She made 237 off 498 balls for North Zone against West Zone in the Inter-Zonal Trophy final, the second-highest score in women’s first-class history, then followed it with 344 runs in six one-day innings, all unbeaten, at an average of 344.00 and the third-most sixes in the tournament. Her T20I career remains thin, just 31 runs in 19 matches at 10.33, though she has been working on her six-hitting for the format, with no domestic T20 numbers yet on record for the 2025-26 season.
TKR’s Direct Path to the Final
The title’s framing deserves a correction TKR fans already know well. Trinbago Knight Riders finished top of the four-team WCPL 2026 table, unbeaten through all three league games, and that result sends them straight into the final without any qualifier or eliminator standing in the way.
That final is set for September 17 at Kensington Oval in Bridgetown, not the 16th or the 18th, and TKR’s opponent will be decided by a playoff between Guyana Amazon Warriors and Barbados Tridents, the second and third-placed sides, on a date yet to be confirmed. Bhatia will already be preparing for the WCPL 2026 Yastika Bhatia India A assignment in Mohali by the time the trophy is handed out at Kensington Oval, which is why Verma’s form over the next fortnight matters more than any fixture TKR were never actually going to play.