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Smriti Mandhana Gave Hindi Lessons To The English Cricketer
By CricShots - Jul 24, 2018 12:40 pm
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England’s Heather Knight fell three short of a Twenty20 century on Sunday, and India’s Smriti Mandhana missed out on her maiden tournament record fifty in the Kia Super League (KSL) match. But the duo, on opposite sides exactly a year ago, joined forces to give fans in Taunton something special.

mandhana
Mandhana smashed the Yorkshire bowlers all over the park

Knight amassed as many as 97 off 62 balls to help Western Storm open their title defense with an eight-wicket victory over Yorkshire Diamonds. She smashed 13 fours and five sixes in the course of her innings before she holed out trying to strike a boundary with two runs required for the win. She had combined with Mandhana for an 80-run stand for the second wicket, with the Indian opener racing away to 48 off 20 balls, which included five humungous sixes.

ALSO READ: Smriti Mandhana Announces Herself On The KSL Debut

However, it wasn’t all about batting as Mandhana even taught Knight some Hindi during their partnership. The Storm skipper took to Twitter to share the same: “A lot of fun batting with @mandhana_smriti yesterday. She taught me how to call in Hindi mid partnership!! ♀️”

The chased down the target of 163 runs given by with 27 balls to spare. It was a flat deck and hence, 15 sixes were smacked in the match by beating the previous record of 10 from 2016.

Talking about the game, Knight said, “Smriti Mandhana plays without any nerves and we saw a little bit of what she can do. She was hitting the ball so cleanly, all I had to do was play a supporting role. I went for my shots a bit more after she got out and I was timing the ball really well out there. I saw that the hundred was on and they don’t come along that often in T20. In the end,  I fell just short and I guess I’ll get a bit of stick for turning down a single at the end.”