Prolific opener Smriti Mandhana admitted that competing at Lord’s turned out to be a stern test for India’s batters, who struggled to adapt to the challenging conditions and were found wanting with their shot selection during the second one-day international against England.
India had started the series strongly with a four-wicket win in the opening match at Southampton, but they were handed an eight-wicket drubbing in a rain-shortened game at Lord’s on Saturday night.
Apart from vice-captain Mandhana, who top-scored with 42, and Deepti Sharma, who remained unbeaten on 30, none of the India batters offered much resistance as they were restricted to just 143 for eight in 29 overs.
“I think as a batting unit, we couldn’t adapt to the conditions quickly,” Mandhana told reporters at the post-match press conference. “We tried to play some shots which were maybe not… like, it was not easy on these sorts of wickets, especially Lord’s.”
Mandhana also pointed out that the prolonged rain delay before the start of play disrupted their focus. “Rain-curtailed matches are always very hard in terms of getting your focus right because, of course, it was a long wait period. And losing the toss in these sorts of matches doesn’t help a lot. But, yeah, it’s a good test for all of us. There are a few things which we could have gotten better.”
The stylish southpaw added that scoring runs at Lord’s is always a grind and hoped her teammates would take valuable lessons from the experience. “A lot of girls played here for the first time. The excitement was quite high. So I’m sure a lot of people took a lot of memories and, of course, a lot of learning as well.”
Lord’s holds a bittersweet place in recent memory for India’s women cricketers, who had lost a closely-fought World Cup final to England here in 2017 by just nine runs. While that defeat was painful, Mandhana reflected on how it raised the profile of women’s cricket back home.
“It’s been a journey since 2017 for women’s cricket, especially back in India,” Mandhana said. “We all were really disappointed that we could not win that day but when we went back home and the kind of reception we got, everyone started knowing a lot about women’s cricket.
“In the last eight years, I mean, wherever we play, we feel like it’s home. People come out and watch us, criticise us, appreciate us, which is all good because, I mean, it’s just on a rise in terms of people knowing and wanting to watch women’s cricket, which is a great thing.”
Mandhana was also asked about the controversial ‘Deepti Sharma Mankading incident’ at Lord’s in September 2022, when Deepti ran out Charlie Dean at the non-striker’s end for backing up too far. The dismissal had reignited the debate about the dismissal’s legality and the so-called ‘Spirit of Cricket’.
“It doesn’t happen, right? You come to Lord’s and that question is not asked,” Mandhana said, smiling.
“I think we didn’t really think anything about all of that incident. Only when today, I think, there was one random appeal for Tammy Beaumont when that happened. And, again, Deepti was bullying. That’s when we cracked the joke.
“The whole match, last time when we won, of course, it was overshadowed quite a lot because of that one incident. But I would say the way we all actually played cricket in terms of that whole series — one incident cannot overshadow it. And the chat was only about how good we played and we have to just keep continuing that.”
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