21-year-old Indian opening batswoman Smriti Mandhana has become the first Indian woman cricketer to be a part of Kia Super League (KSL), a semi-professional women’s T20 competition in England and Wales. Mandhana believes that it will be a good opportunity for her to improve the batting quality before the World T20.
The 2018 Women’s World T20 will be held in West Indies from November 2 to 25. Mandhana is looking on the KSL as a big platform for taking preparation ahead of the upcoming WWT20.
Talking about the T20 tournament, Mandhana told Firstpost in an interview, “After the England series (in April) we got a window of one month, so that was like an early off season. The KSL is a good way to play matches because getting quality matches ahead of the World Cup is really important for me as a player to perform well for India.
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“As an overseas player, they will expect me to do well. So to learn to handle the expectations, that will help me in the World Cup (T20), because people expect a lot from me in the World Cup.”
Mandhana will feature in this tournament for the Gloucestershire-based Western Storm, the defending champions of the 2018 edition. Mandhana will play this tournament to improve her batting skills, specially for the T20 format.
Mandhana spoke on that, “I’ll have to start practicing all the boundary shots and other shots in swinging conditions. In ODIs you take your time and then go for the shots. In T20s, you don’t have that, you have to go after it from ball one. To do that in swinging conditions is something I’ll be working on. I’ll have to add preparation for lofting balls that are swinging.”
It will be Mandhana’s second foreign T20 league as she had featured in the 2016/17 Women’s Big Bash League in Australia for Brisbane Heat. Before getting ruled out from the tournament due to a knee injury, Mandhana had played 12 games in that season and had scored only 89 runs with the average of just 11.12.
However, Mandhana is now confident to showcase the better performances in the upcoming KSL season.
Comparing of her maiden BBL stint, Mandhana said, “That time I was just 18. But now after 2-3 years, I would be better prepared. Staying alone, doing the preparation all alone, that would be a bit easier.”
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Mandhana also believes that some better performances from her in the upcoming KSL season and some good match-winning performances from the other Indian players during the upcoming WWT20 can open the doors in the foreign leagues for more Indian women cricketers.
Speaking about how she earns the opportunity to feature in the upcoming KSL, Mandhana described, “Once BCCI checked that it’s not clashing with international commitments, they spoke with the team management, who felt it would be a good opportunity for me. By the end of the England series, the BCCI got back to me with the NOC. Then I started communication with the Storm manager.”
