Smriti Mandhana on Saturday said that she was proud of her teammates for turning things around at the ongoing Women’s T20 Asia Cup and ending up with a 59-run win against Bangladesh after facing a 13-run defeat against Pakistan on Friday in Sylhet.
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With Harmanpreet Kaur out with a niggle, Mandhana was tasked with the responsibility of leading the team. The Indian opener led from the front with a 38-ball 47 but she also praised Jemimah Rodrigues (35 off 27), Shafali Verma (55 off 47), and Deepti Sharma (10 off 5) for their solid performances that ensured India became the first team in the tournament to qualify for the semifinal.
Talking about the result in the post match presentation, Mandhana said, “It was disappointing in the last match. It is good to come back after that loss, really proud of the girls. Today it was a total team performance. Shafali batted well, and also Jemimah played well. We could have scored 10 runs more while batting.”
While India’s batting woes were exposed in the match against Pakistan, they presented a well-rounded batting as well as economical bowling performance with Deepti and Shafali picking two wickets apiece and defending the 159-run target.
“We had to keep bowling dot balls, and we had to wait for their batters to make mistakes, which they did. Our bowlers bowled really well,”
She added: “We were clinical as a bowling unit. We have to keep bowling dot balls and make them make mistakes. It is not easy for pace bowlers on this track to pick wickets. All of them actually bowled really well,”
