CHENNAI : The opening partnership between Shafali Verma and Smriti Mandhana has come a long way since 2019, the year Verma made her international debut at the age of 15.
They recently became only the second opening pair to cross 2000 runs in international cricket, behind Australia's Alyssa Healy and Beth Mooney. The duo has seen each other's growth as batters and has contributed to many of India's wins over the years.
However, there is still scope for India to maximise the potential of this duo.
A glance at the career strike rates of these two inside the powerplay and outside of it makes a very interesting read. Verma is known to be aggressive from the get-go and that is reflected in her powerplay strike rate of 135.2. Mandhana, on the other hand, because she is mostly letting Verma make most of the powerplay, has a strike rate of 117.2 (since Verma's debut in 2019).
That number might look less compared with Verma's strike rate, but it is still amongst the top four players with a minimum of 50 matches since 2019. The other two players ahead of Mandhana are Healy and Danni Wyatt of England.
The roles get reversed after the end of the powerplay overs.
The more Mandhana bats, the better her strike rate gets. Her strike rate from 7-11 overs remains the same, but whenever she has batted between 12-16 overs, she has scored with a strike rate of 148.3. The more Mandhana stays at the crease, the more she makes of her opportunities.
For Verma, though, the more she bats outside of the powerplay, her strike rate starts to decline. From 135.2 in the first six overs, it goes down to 124.4 if she lasts till the 11th over. It becomes increasingly harder for her to bat after the 12th over as her strike rate dips to 114.4.
Again, just like Mandhana in the powerplay, these are not bad numbers at all, but strategic planning could make a difference between scoring 150, which has been the consistent batting first score of the side, to consistently going towards 170+ scores.
If India allows Verma to make most of the powerplay fielding restrictions, with her usual flair without thinking too much about what she can do after the powerplay and lets Mandhana hold the fort without eating too many balls at the other end, India can set a foundation on which the middle order can thrive.
With that clarity of roles for the openers, the middle-order, and a quality finisher like Richa Ghosh, India can then look to post a total that's outside of the opposition's reach.
For this to work, the middle order has to come to the party as early as possible. However, for now, the support staff has the chance to assign that role clarity starting from the openers so the dependency on the pair could gradually go down.