PONDICHERRY: The last time Smriti Mandhana played for Maharashtra was in the 2017-18 season. And that’s been the case with several Indian internationals who play all the formats and take part in overseas leagues.
This year was different. After the World Cup, every Indian player is in the domestic circuit, turning up for their respective teams. While the likes of Harmanpreet Kaur, Shafali Verma, Jemimah Rodrigues and Shikha Pandey have notched up performances consistently, the southpaw hasn’t been up to the mark.
Scores of 11 (13), 10 (9), 37 (27) and 7 (15) are not what one would expect from a world-class opener like Mandhana. She was getting the starts but wasn’t able to convert any. Twice she got out to low full tosses, hitting them straight to the fielders. Sometimes she was way too early into the shots to the extent where the ball reached her bat almost after the follow-through.
Against Hyderabad, on a relatively slower surface, she resisted going on her front foot and tried to bide her time and play on the back foot. But, she was pinned down with a series of dot balls and eventually perished, flashing hard at a wide delivery. The team was still winning, but things weren’t going her way. Often, she could be seen shadow practising with the bat, engulfed in her own world.
But on Sunday, when she went on to bat while chasing against Rajasthan in their final league game, something was different. Right from the moment when she took guard, Mandhana looked confident. The front foot was moving towards the pitch of the ball with her hands coming down perfectly, timing the ball through the off-side. But she was still finding the fielders.
Looking at how she was getting on the front foot, Rajasthan brought the wicket-keeper up to the stumps. The southpaw patiently waited on her back foot and tried to play pacer Suman Meena through point. At this point, she had faced eight deliveries; there were a few typical Mandhana drives, but she was yet to get off the mark.
Then came the compulsive pull off left-arm spinner Shanu — which was almost caught by the short-midwicket fielder — to get her first boundary. It wasn’t her best, but she needed it. The next delivery was gloriously driven between the cover and cover-point fielder as she used her wrists to find the gap. The third was a much better pull shot which almost got over the ropes. From 0 off eight, she had gone to 12 off 11. Something had clicked. Could be the fact that the pitch suited her or the confidence from the batting session on Saturday, which was a rest day.
From thereon, she hardly looked back. When off-spinner SP Sharma came on, she welcomed her with a loft over the extra-cover boundary — a Mandhana Special. After struggling through the league stages, she was finally timing the ball like a dream. It seemed like today was her day. She looked set for a big score, something that was essential for both Maharashtra and her before the knockouts.
She was finding the gaps, picking up singles and doubles with no scoreboard pressure. The southpaw was more than happy to rotate the strike and anchor the innings. She had moved to 28 from 30 balls, determined to see through the chase as they needed 54 runs from 12.5 overs.
And then it happened. Something that could have been done by opponent bowlers multiple times during the World Cup but wasn’t. Mandhana was run out by KP Choudhary at the non-striker’s end for leaving the crease early. There were some heated discussions in the middle while the decision was being made by the umpires, but eventually, the southpaw walked off the field unhappy. This was always coming at some point for Mandhana could be seen leaving the crease too early often, even in internationals. That said, more than the type of dismissal, she would probably be more disappointed by the timing of it. She wasn’t having any sort of trouble and was well on her way to getting a consolidated inning under her belt. But that wasn’t the case.
While the conversation over her run-out took centre stage from there, Maharashtra eventually got off the line and qualified for the quarterfinals. However, for a brief while in the middle, Mandhana’s magic touch was on display. And hopefully, that should give her the confidence to stamp her authority in the knockouts.