A pillar of Indian women’s cricket team from shadowing her brother to cricket practice to becoming one of the cornerstones of the Indian women’s cricket team and the heir-apparent to the talismanic Mithali Raj, Smriti Mandhana’s journey has been a fascinating one.
Smriti Mandhana’s Batting Style and Strengths
Currently regarded as one of the best batters in women’s cricket, Smriti Mandhana holds several coveted records to her name.
Smriti Mandhana is also the youngest captain of the Indian cricket team, men’s or women’s. She also led Royal Challengers Bengaluru to the Women’s Premier League (WPL) 2024 title.
Following in a brother’s footsteps
Smriti Mandhana was born in Mumbai on July 18, 1996, but when she was two years old, her family moved to the Madhavnagar suburbs of Sangli, Maharashtra, where she spent her formative years.
Her father, Shrinivas, was a chemical distributor by profession, while her mother, Smita, was a housewife.
Smriti Mandhana’s inspirational journey
Cricket was always a part of the Mandhana household with her father having played at the district level. Her brother Shravan also played cricket and went on to represent the Maharashtra U-19 team before stepping away from the game and eventually becoming a banker.
Though Shravan didn’t continue with cricket, his presence in Smriti Mandhana’s life was hugely influential in her becoming a cricketer. It was during her trips to the practice grounds with her brother, four years older than her, that the passion for cricket sparked in a young Smriti.
The sparks slowly turned into dreams once her brother started doing well at junior levels, and his name used to appear in local newspapers. Smriti used to cut out the clippings for her scrapbook.
Smriti Mandhana’s batting style
“One day, I thought I should also be scoring runs like this,” Smriti Mandhana told ESPNCricinfo. “My father never said no to me, so whenever my brother went for a net session, he used to lob balls at me gently.”
Interestingly, both Shravan and Smriti are right-handed but bat left-handed.
“Because my father had a fascination for left-handed batsmen, my brother and I played left-handed. So that is how it started,” Smriti explained.
Soon, Smriti Mandhana started training under coach Anant Tambwekar, a junior state trainer at Sangli.
By the age of nine, Smriti Mandhana had broken into the U-15 Maharashtra side and after dominating senior opponents, was fast-tracked into the U-19 state team at the mere age of 11.
At the age of 15, Smriti Mandhana found herself at the crossroads with her board examinations coming up. She wanted to study science, but her mother dissuaded her because she knew that balancing cricket and studies would become tough.
Mandhana went on to pick commerce and would later go on to complete her bachelor’s degree from the Chintaman Rao College of Commerce in Sangli. It also helped her dedicate more time to cricket.
Smriti Mandhana’s India debut
Smriti had a breakthrough year in 2013.
Smriti Mandhana made her international debut for India in a T20 match against Bangladesh women at Vadodara on April 5. She was just 16 at the time.
On her debut, Smriti Mandhana was India’s highest scorer (39 off 36) and helped the team win by 10 runs and wrap up the bilateral series 3-0.
Five days later, on April 10, Smriti Mandhana made her One Day International (ODI) debut against Bangladesh in Ahmedabad. Coming in at Number 3, the youngster played a handy innings of 25 from 35 balls.
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A special bat from Rahul Dravid
Curiously, Smriti Mandhana’s bat during her limited-overs debuts seemed a tad oversized for her stature. Later, she revealed that, in fact, it wasn’t supposed to be her playing bat but a signed practice bat by Indian cricket legend Rahul Dravid, which her brother had gifted to her.
Women’s Premier League star Smriti Mandhana
“Shravan met Rahul sir and requested him if he could give a bat,” Smriti Mandhana said. “So he gave it to him and signed it with my name. My brother was also very sweet, got him to sign it for me. I was just going to keep it as a showpiece as an autographed bat from Dravid, but as soon as I picked it, I found it had an amazing balance, and I started playing with it.”
Months later, Mandhana would go on to achieve another milestone using the Dravid-signed willow.
During an Inter-State Under-19 one-day competition, Smriti Mandhana smashed an unbeaten 224 off just 150 balls against Gujarat at the Alembic Cricket Ground in Vadodara. Smriti Mandhana became the first Indian woman to score a double-hundred in a 50-over cricket match at any level. She scored two more centuries in the tournament.
On August 13, 2014, Mandhana would go on to make her Test debut against England women at Wormsley. She scored 22 in the first innings and a match-winning 51 in the second.
Smriti Mandhana Inspiring the Next Generation of Cricketers
It was also a historic win for the Indian women’s cricket team, with the one-off Wormsley encounter marking the side’s first Test match in over eight years.
Since then, Smriti Mandhana has been an integral part of the Indian setup and one of the batting pillars alongside Harmanpreet Kaur and the now-retired Mithali Raj.
Smriti Mandhana scored her maiden international century (102 from 109 balls) against Australia in an ODI match at the Bellerive Oval in Hobart in 2016. She was selected in the ICC Women’s Team of the Year for that season.
In 2017, Smriti Mandhana played a pivotal role in helping India reach the ICC Women’s ODI World Cup final, where India lost to England in the final by just nine runs. It was India’s first World Cup final since 2005.
Smriti Mandhana, who had to race against time to get fit for the tournament after an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) rupture, was India’s third-highest scorer in the tournament after Mithali and Harmanpreet. She scored 232 runs in nine matches, including an unbeaten century against the West Indies.
Why Smriti Mandhana is Called a Pillar of Indian Women’s Cricket
The following year, Smriti Mandhana was the highest run-getter in women’s ODIs and was also a star performer in India’s run to the semi-finals of the ICC Women’s World T20 tournament hosted in the West Indies.
Smriti Mandhana also scored a 50 in just 18 deliveries while playing for Western Storm against Loughborough Lightning in a Kia Super League 2018 match to equal Kiwi ace Sophie Devine’s record of the fastest 50 ever scored in women’s T20 cricket.
She won both the ICC Women’s Cricketer of the Year and the ICC Women’s ODI Player of the Year for 2018.
In February 2019, Smriti Mandhana became the world’s No. 1 batter in ICC women’s ODI rankings.
Later in the same month, she earned the honour of being India’s youngest T20 cricket captain, for both men and women, after stepping into the shoes of the injured skipper Harmanpreet Kaur in the first match of a three-match series against England in Guwahati.
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