CHENNAI: "Was I not batting well before that," quipped Smriti Mandhana with a laugh in one of the post-match press conferences during the recent tri-series in South Africa when asked if she was still feeling the touch with the bat that the India opener had said she found in England just before the Commonwealth Games.
It was not a dig at the journalist who asked the question nor was it a snap for a comment on her batting in general. It was just a reflection of the happy state of mind she was in, especially about her batting. Minutes before that, she had expressed her pleasant surprise at the number of people who had turned up for the virtual PC around 2 AM Indian time saying, "Aaj bahut log hain (today quite a few are here)" and had politely corrected the team’s media manager that her name is pronounced as 'Mandhana' and not 'Mandhaana' with a smile.
What followed over the next 14 minutes was an interaction that was refreshing as the India vice-captain responded to every query candidly, including the very first one to which she had reacted with a counter.
"I think, before the Commonwealth Games, I had some time to go back and actually practice a lot in my batting which I had to work on. Definitely before that, a few things in my batting, it was not about scoring or not scoring, but the kind of feel you get and somewhere I was not feeling 100 per cent with my batting, but before CWG I felt that I am actually timing the ball the way I actually want to. Since then, I have been trying to build on it, watch the videos as I know that this is what is working for me and stretch it as long as I can," she had said.
And the numbers reflect the same. From 2020 till the CWG, the southpaw had amassed 582 runs at an average of 29.10 and with a strike rate of 128.76. Post this period, she has smashed 618 at 34.33 with a SR of 134.05. But it is not just about the strike rate and average. With Mandhana, there is more to it than just that. As she focused on being happy about the way she felt, she was timing the ball better and clearing the boundaries with ease — 14 sixes in 23 innings since CWG as opposed to just 7 in 21 innings from 2020 till then — and more importantly, converting the quick starts into match-winning scores. Not that she hasn’t done all of these before as she asked, but the difference is visible.
While the 26-year-old has often been the aggressor in her partnership with Shafali Verma, especially since she found her touch, Mandhana said that going hard early on irrespective of the conditions is something that has backfired at times as it did for India in the first match of the tri-series before Deepti Sharma and Amanjot Kaur led the recovery. "It depends on what conditions I am batting and not regarding how I am in my mind. That was the mistake I made in the first match… we had to learn from our mistakes and understand that building an innings is really important in these wickets (slow and low ones) and not just going after every ball. That is something I have been working on, trying to be a little mature about it. It is still a work in progress."
'When Mandhana scores, India wins' is a general feeling, and they do more often than not. But there isn’t much of a difference in the numbers. It, however, seems to be related to how she feels about her batting as she said. All of her six fifties since CWG has resulted in a victory for India. Come Sunday, India would be hoping that a happy Mandhana takes the field and she continues to stay in that zone over the next three weeks. A 'happy Mandhana' seems to be working out well not just for herself, but the Women in Blue as well.