Ace batswoman Smriti Mandhana rose three places up, reaching the fourth position, in the latest ICC women’s T20 International rankings for batters. Jemimah Rodrigues, however, dropped to the seventh position and Harmanpreet Kaur is steadily maintaining her grip at ninth spot in the list. New Zealand's No3 Suzie Bates has retained her top spot and her teammate and captain Sophie Devine rose four ranks to No 2, the ICC said in a statement.
Key Takeaways:
- Star batswoman Smriti Mandhana rose three rungs to fourth spot in the latest ICC women’s T20 International rankings
- Harmanpreet Kaur has remained at ninth on the same list but Jemimah Rodrigues dropped to the seventh position.
- Suzie Bates, New Zealand's No3, retained her top spot.
A successful year
Last year, Mandhana became the second-fastest Indian after Shikhar Dhawan, and the third-fastest woman after Belinda Clark and Meg Lanning to score 2,000 runs in one-day internationals. Batting with a great pace, the star batswoman returned to the ODI team after recovering from a toe injury and hit a fantastic fifty against West Indies in Antigua to collect 2,000 runs in ODI cricket. Thus, she became only the second fastest Indian to reach the milestone. Dhawan (48 innings) is the only other Indian to hold the record score of 2,000 runs in 50-overs cricket while Virat Kohli touched the mark in 53 innings.
She continues to perform brilliantly on the field as the opener and number one ODI batswoman. The all-rounder is levelling up her game in the lead up to the upcoming Women’s T20 World Cup. The stellar batswoman was also awarded the ODI Player of the Year by ICC. The talented player received the award after her outstanding performance at the Women’s T20 Challenge. In April last year, she was awarded ‘Women’s Leading Cricketer of the Year’ in the 2018 edition of the Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack. She was also awarded the Arjuna Award, recently.
Speaking about her batting she said, “I and Coach Raman sir have been discussing quite a bit about my game. How I can become more consistent in T20 cricket, how I can add more power to my game. I still feel I need to improve on that front.”
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Mandhana is only the second Indian woman to win an International Cricket Council award, fast bowler Jhulan Goswami being the first one, who was named women’s player of the year in 2007.
She further added, “You have to improve because other teams are also keeping an eye on you. Adding new shots is not something which I am looking for; I am looking to consistently hit the same length of balls in different places.”
Smriti Mandhana also made it to the ‘Forbes India 30 Under 30’ list last year, and was the only cricketer on that list.
The T20 World Cup will be held in Australia from February 21 and Smriti Mandhana has assured us that she is tougher than ever!
Congrats and all the best to the feisty player!
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