Smriti Resurrected : Peeping through the Statistics

The girl from Sangli, who already played for India then and served the team in many memorable matches for almost 3 years, became the national sensation after her memorable knock of 86 and 104* in the first two matches of the World Cup. From nowhere the India had found someone, who has forced many to spent sleepless nights just like she steals victory from the jaws of defeat.

But after that the run just dried up. In next 7 matches she failed to match the expectation she created.

But she came back strong. She made the statement. She worked hard and proved the eternal truth that there are many who hit long sixes but there are few who fight hard. And those who fight hard earn our respect.

In the domestic one day series she scored which showed the sign of her come back. In 4 matches of senior-domestic One-Day-League, she scored 188 runs @ 47 with the best of 98.

After long interval of almost 7 months Indian women team toured South-Africa and won both ODI series and T-20 series. In all those matches somewhere or the other Smriti left her contribution. In the 3 ODI she played she scored a total of 219 in three matches which earned her the player of the tournament trophy. At the same time she worked on her weakness on the onside which she was trapped for several times. Even if the way she was trapped or the shots she executed while got out in the world cups, most of those shot selections were not seen much after the world cups. For example, remember the moment she got out against RSA in World Cup. Until then Smriti was punishing everything that were pitched short without mercy. Prepared Kapp banged the first ball of the innings short and Smriti send it for four. In the very next ball Kapp again pitched it short but this time with a protection in the deep mid-wicket. Smriti went for the pull short and superbly caught by Ismail patrolling the boundary.

So as we can see that the strong points of someone often turn out to be the weak point as well. So Mandhana seems to have worked on these finer points.

After the successful tour of RSA India faced off mighty Aussies and to the utter dismay of the supporters India lost all the ICC championship ODI matches. But in those darkest hours the only silver-lining was Smriti’s batting and the aggressive approach which we expect from the players when they face off the strong team like Australia. In the T20 tri series as well she also put some runs under her kitty. In the last match of the tri-series she reached 50 in just 25 balls which the fastest for any Indian in the Women International circuit. Though India failed to live up to the expectations, Smriti’s consistent form gives us rays of hope in the England series and in the upcoming t-20 World Cup. But the area of concern which is still looming large is that though she has played superbly in some of the matches when got out after getting set and failed to convert the starts
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Smriti Mandhana after WWC’17 in ODIs

As evident from the above table , she scored 350 runs in 6 ICC ODI Championship matches @ 58  with 1 century and 3 half centuries. Besides her strike rate of 100 is pretty decent if you consider the current trend in Women’s Cricket.   

Smriti Mandhana after WWC’17 in T-20

 
After the Women’s World Cup 2017 in 8 T-20 matches, Smriti scored 343 runs @ 49 with 4 fifties and her strike rate was 155.20.