Despite fizzling out during the latter half of last year’s World Cup, Smriti Mandhana was one of the brightest spots in the Indian women’s team’s successful campaign in England.
The stylish left-handed opener had admitted she was striving for consistency after India’s heart-breaking loss to England in the World Cup final.
At the fag end of what Smriti describes as “one of the longest streak of continuous international cricket”, the girl from Sangli in Maharashtra has emerged as the brightest spots over the last two months.
She has been India’s highest run-getter this season in both the limited overs’ formats. Be it in seam-friendly conditions in South Africa in February or the flat decks offered during the one-dayers against Australia at Vadodara and the tri-series at Mumbai or the rank turner during the ongoing one-day series against England, Smriti has succeeded against the conditions and a variety of bowlers.
In the last two months, she has tallied 478 runs from eight ODIs at 59.75 with five 50-plus scores including a big hundred in South Africa. She has been equally impressive in T20s, tallying 343 runs from eight innings at an average of 49.
During the tri-series against England and Australia in Mumbai, Smriti was ruing the fact that she gifted her wicket too often. But she was delighted to have made the “mental adjustments” in the first two ODIs against England in Nagpur, scoring 84 and 42. “I have been working on the mental aspect with Tushar sir (head coach Tushar Arothe). I keep talking to him about how to avoid lapse of concentration. It’s the basic stuff that I am trying to revert to. For instance, taking a fresh leg-guard after every drinks interval or reaching the fifty,” Smriti said ahead of Thursday’s series-decider against England.
“He (Aorthe) has also been advising on taking some time off and tapping the pitch in case I start feeling that I have started losing concentration a bit. It’s working for me in the 50-over format. In T20s, you can’t really take so much time for yourself but here you can take some time.”
With the series hinging in balance, Smriti hoped that the Indian batters will click as a group, something that hasn’t happened on the turning pitches at Jamtha in the first two games.
“Two or three players should click together when batting. Especially on this wicket, it’s important for someone who has managed to play 25-odd balls to go on and play a long innings because any new batter will find it hard to get going on such turning tracks. You can’t really convert a good ball into a scoring shot on such a pitch. So you have to wait for the loose ball and capitalise on it,” she said.
“In the first match, I got the team close but in the last game, I was disappointed because 42 is not a score to get out on. Once you get into double digits, you have to make it count by scoring an 80 or a 100.”
