‘Really exciting’ – Smriti Mandhana on new-look pace attack ahead of England tour

With Renuka Singh Thakur, Pooja Vastrakar, and Titas Sadhu on the sidelines, Arundhati Reddy will lead the unit. The workload will be shared by Amanjot Kaur, Sayali Satghare, and Kranti Goud alongside Reddy.

“We have a new-look pace-bowling unit because unfortunately, there are a few injuries which had happened over the last four to five months, but really exciting. I mean [the] WPL has been good in terms of finding new people and of course, the domestic system as well,” stated Mandhana, as quoted by Cricbuzz.

Mandhana, who attended the pre-match press conference instead of Harmanpreet Kaur, was confident of the preparations of the young bunch of pacers.

“[With] the amount of matches the girls play nowadays, so all these girls have a rich experience in the domestic format, I’m really excited to see them. Young talent whenever they come in, it’s always very exciting, everyone’s been prepping up well, trying to do everything right and what better place than England to come to as a pacer,” she added.

The left-handed top-order batter also emphasised on the importance of improvising and adapting one’s skill-sets and strategies as a batter in the shortest format of the game. 

“I think [in the] T20 game for me, there’s a lot of things which I always feel like there’s a lot of scope of improvement for. And not only me, I mean, most of the batters, it’s a format which you have to keep improvising and keep improving because the other teams keep getting you, keep planning against the way you bat,” noted Mandhana.

India Women will play five T20Is against the Nat Sciver-Brunt led England Women. The 20-over games will be followed by three ODIs. The series opener will be played at Trent Bridge on Saturday, June 28.