India women’s vice-captain Smriti Mandhana has backed herself and fellow opener Shafali Verma to play a more significant role after their six-wicket loss in the final T20I in Taunton against England, losing the series 2-1.
The pair had lean runs in the series, stitching opening stands of 19, 27 and 0 in the three T20Is. Mandhana scored just 40 runs, averaging just 13.33 with a high score of 32, while Shafali scored 35 runs at 11.66. The latter, though, struck at 152.17 compared to Mandhana’s 114.28. Despite the lean patch, she has backed herself and her fellow opener to provide solid starts.
“For me and Shifu [Shafali], we are definitely timing the ball well but unfortunately we are not able to contribute in big ways for the team. But for both of us, we’ll go back in the nets, keep working hard and make sure we come back stronger as an opening pair because both of us pride ourselves to give good starts and keep the momentum going. But unfortunately we could not do that in this series. We’ll take it in our stride and try and work hard,” Mandhana said, as reported by ESPNcricinfo.
For India, Harmanpreet Kaur top-scored in the first innings with a 40-ball 56, leading the team to a competitive total of 180 for 5 in their 20 overs. Mandhana lauded her skipper for her knock and is excited that all the batters in the middle order were able to get runs ahead of the big T20 World Cup Campaign.
“She batted amazingly well today. Harman, when she is at her best, it is a sight to watch. Today, she played all over the ground, really important innings under pressure today, especially when we needed that knock to get us to 180-plus. Really happy. I just feel everyone is definitely in good nick. It’s good signs going forward for the World Cup that Jemi [Jemimah Rodrigues], Harman, everyone is looking really beautiful to watch from the outside. Hopefully, I can watch from the non-striker’s end,” Mandhana said.
India had the Lionesses reeling at 38 for 3 in their batting innings before Alice Capsey and Heather Knight came together to stitch a mammoth 137-run stand, which took them home. Mandhana lauded the pair but rued being unable to capitalise on the position they had England in.
“We definitely started extremely well with the ball, 35 [38] for 3. [But] I wouldn’t really take anything away from the partnership they had. I think they played really good cricketing shots. They played all around the ground. In hindsight, we would have been able to build pressure with a few dot balls, but we were not able to do that,” Mandhana stated.
Mandhana further stated that the series serves as preparation ahead of the T20 World Cup Campaign, and would offer them a chance to rectify their mistakes ahead of the big tournament.
“As I said, for all of us, we will definitely look at this game in a way where we can do better and not repeat these mistakes in the World Cup coming ahead. With our bowling, we’ll go back to the drawing board, see which options can be better. We did that before this series, maybe we can go back again and now we know these conditions, what balls [need] to be bowled. I am sure those two-three things are going to help a lot of our players,” she added.
India kick off their 2026 ICC Women’s T20 World Cup campaign against arch-rivals Pakistan on June 14 at Edgbaston.
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