Power hitting, fielding to be priority for new captain Smriti Mandhana

The reign of Smriti Mandhana as fulltime India captain in all formats may have begun on a low key on Friday—but one of the leading lights of women’s cricket has a long term plan for her team. It’s been an unusually long wait for someone as capable of leading by example, but the 31-year-old now wants to build on a few areas like professionalism, power-hitting and fielding.

Smriti & Co did look a bit ragged in their first-ever clash against Zimbabwe—struggling to overpower the Africans by four wickets while chasing a modest target of 115 in the first of the three-match T20I series in Raipur. The second match is scheduled on Sunday while the ODI series which follows it will have all it’s matches in Vadodara.  

The T20 series, meanwhile, will give Smriti a chance to begin preparing the team for the ICC Women's Champions Trophy 2027, to be held in India. India has six T20I matches, three against Zimbabwe and three against South Africa before the Champions Trophy, in addition to the Women's Premier League (WPL) early next year. 

‘’I have a job to do, I have to deliver. I always say this that though the captain’s name is first on the list, you're always the last on the list in terms of keeping everyone ahead,’’ Smriti said in an interview with the broadcasters show: Follow the Blues: The Dawn of Captain Smriti.

‘’I’ve been in the leadership group for a while now, but I definitely had written down a roadmap every time. The first thing which comes to my mind is the professionalism around it and trying to have this team go about things like a well-oiled machine. Like taking our training, power-hitting, fielding and professionalism one notch higher. And, of course, setting a culture,’’ she added.

 A multiple ICC Player of the Year awardee and the fastest to reach 10,000 international runs, Smriti said she wants to establish standards that younger players can follow in the future.  ‘’You always take up this role to leave it in a way where you set a culture for the team, for the rest of the girls to follow. So, you don’t just do this for the sake of it,’’ she said.

There has been a vexed question of how challenging it would be for Smriti to have veteran Harmanpreet reporting to her. ‘’She’s (Harmanpreet) led India, she’s the longest-serving captain and has been such a great leader. So I’m sure that her experience, especially with a lot of youngsters coming into the team now and the way she works towards the game, is going to be inspiring for a lot of people,’’ Smirti handled the query with aplomb.

 ‘’I hope they actually watch her, the way she goes about preparing for the game and learn and take a lot of things from her.’’ Mandhana said the upcoming matches will help India decide how they want to play and which role suits each player.