The highly anticipated ICC Women's World Cup 2025 is all set to kickstart on September 30.
The biggest event of women’s cricket is just around the corner as the highly anticipated ICC Women’s World Cup 2025 is all set to kickstart on September 30. Star Indian batter and the team’s vice captain, Smriti Mandhana, has opened up about her aspirations ahead of the 50-over championship.
The southpaw is showcasing a blazing run of form with back-to-back hundreds against the defending 50-over World Cup champions, Australia. Moreover, in the final fixture of the three-match India Women vs Australia Women ODI series, she also became the fastest Indian to hit a ton in the format by surpassing the more than a decade-long record of the former Indian captain Virat Kohli.
She achieved the feat in just 50 balls while chasing a mammoth 413, which eclipsed Kohli’s 52-ball hundred against the same opponents in 2013. But the swashbuckling opener was not able to give her best in last year’s 20-over World Cup. The batter went through a lean patch, averaging a below-par 18.75 with a strike rate of only 94.93. Mandhana managed to put up just 25 runs in three matches, apart from her solitary fifty-plus score against Sri Lanka.
The team’s vice-captain spoke about how the tough outing made her bring in several changes in her preparations before the upcoming mega ICC event. Notably, the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup 2024 was the Women in Blue’s first group-stage exit since 2016. They failed to advance to the subsequent half of the tournament after losing two of the four league-stage fixtures, against the Aussies and New Zealand, respectively.
“The last T20 World Cup was something which hit me quite a lot. I thought to myself, ‘I don’t want to feel like this as an athlete in my life’. Post that, a lot of fitness and nutritional changes have come into place. We all have been waiting for this World Cup. A lot of things have changed for women’s cricket in India since I was a kid,” said Mandhana to JioHotstar.
ALSO READ:
The hosts, India and Sri Lanka, will set the ball rolling in the much-awaited 50-over spectacle. The opening clash between these two sides will take place at the Barsapara Stadium in Guwahati. However, the team has started off their preparations for the mega-event on a poor note on Thursday.
After electing to field first in their maiden warm-up match against England Women, the Indian bowlers conceded a huge 340 runs, which included a sublime century from the English captain Nat Sciver-Brunt (120*). While chasing the total, the team displayed an abysmal batting show to suffer a 153-run defeat.
Jemimah Rodrigues and Uma Chery put up two valiant knocks of 66 and 45, respectively, but the key batters, including the opening pair of Mandhana and Pratika Rawal, alongside skipper Harmanpreet Kaur, did not feature in the match. They will next face the Black Caps in the second and final warm-up fixture on September 27.
For more updates, follow CricXtasy on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube.
