Smriti Mandhana recently spoke to ICC and this is what she had to say:
“I want to give my 100 per cent in every match, that’s the only aim I have. Because if I think about expectations, I won’t be able to perform, which I didn’t do in the last match. So it’s better for me not to put pressure on myself and just enjoy the game,” she said ahead of the second match, the big one against Pakistan.
“From every win, we have to take our points out. The Powerplay – I don’t think we got the kind of start we expect our batters to give,” she said. “Personally, I didn’t bat the way I do.
“From the bowlers’ point of view, we could have restricted them below 150 [New Zealand scored 160/9 in reply to India’s 194/5] – that would have been great for us. Those are the things we’ll be working on in our next game.”
“We have done our research on the Pakistan team, but there’s no single player, we have done research on all 15 players. So the way we played yesterday (against New Zealand), we’d like to put up the same show tomorrow,” said Mandhana, who clarified that Kaur, who was cramping during her innings in the game against New Zealand, was fine and should take the field against Pakistan.
“We came quite early to the West Indies, and we played three warm-up matches [one unofficial and two official] before getting into the last game. All the batters and bowlers know the conditions really well, and I think we have acclimatised to the conditions really well,” she said.
“Before coming to the World T20, we discussed that we have to take it one match at a time. Yesterday was a good win for us, but it’s the past now. We cannot really think about it.”
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