MUMBAI: The Indian women’s cricket team may be out of the 2026 Women’s T20 World Cup, but India will still have a representative in the tournament’s biggest tournament – and history.Vrinda Rathi, who hails from Nerul in Navi Mumbai, has been selected by the International Cricket Council (ICC) as one of the players to play in the Women’s T20 World Cup final between hosts England and Australia at Lord’s Cricket Ground on Sunday. He will co-lead with Jacqueline Williams.Rathi’s appointment is a significant milestone, as she became the first woman from India to preside over a Women’s World Cup final. He is also the second Indian umpire to stand in an ICC World Cup final after Ram Babu Gupta, who featured in the 1987 Men’s World Cup final at the Eden Gardens along with Pakistan’s Mahboob Shah. Match umpire GS Lakshmi, meanwhile, presided over the 2023 and 2024 Women’s T20 World Cup finals.Rathi, 37, has built an impressive career, having featured in 20 Women’s One-Day Internationals, 77 Women’s T20 Internationals and one Women’s Test match.“She is a good umpire, a hard worker. She is one of the top umpires in the ICC group in the women’s game. She was a scorer first. Then, she became an umpire at my insistence. ‘You can have a career as an umpiring,’ I told her. In 2014, Rathi cleared the umpires’ test. Later, Mumba Cricket’s four-year test was conducted by Mumba Cricket’ and umpire. of the Control for Cricket in India (in 2018). Within a year (in 2020), he, along with Narayanan Janani, was elevated to the ICC Development Panel of Umpires,” Ganesh Iyer, former BCCI umpire and former chairman of the Mumbai Cricket Association’s executive committee, told TOI.Before taking up umpiring, Rathi was a keen athlete and represented the University of Mumbai women’s team for four years, although she did not make it to the Mumbai senior women’s team.Rathi made history in December 2023 when she became the first Indian woman to play in a women’s Test match, standing in a Test match between India and England at the BY Patil Stadium in Navi Mumbai.His rise through the ranks has been rapid. In 2022, he participated in the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham. On January 10, 2023, she, along with Janani Narayanan, became one of the first women to stand as referee in a men’s domestic game in India, refereeing the Ranji Trophy match between Goa and Pondicherry.In 2023, Rathi also participated in the Women’s T20 World Cup in South Africa, represented the final of the Women’s Premier League and was part of the management team of the Asian Games in Hangzhou, China.