Smriti Mandhana’s Early and personal life
Smriti Mandhana was born on 18 July 1996 in Mumbai to mother Smita and father Srinivas Mandhana. When she was two, the family moved to Madhavnagar in Sangli, Maharashtra, where she completed her schooling. Both his father and brother, Shravan, played district-level cricket for Sangli. She was inspired to take up cricket after watching her brother play in the Maharashtra state under-16 tournament.
At the age of nine, he was selected in the Under-15 team of Maharashtra. At the age of eleven, he was selected for the Maharashtra Under-19 team. Mandhana’s family is closely involved in her cricketing activities. His father Srinivas looks after his cricket schedule, his mother Smita looks after his diet, clothing and other family aspects, and his brother Shravan still makes him bowl in the nets.
Domestic career
Smriti Mandhana’s first breakthrough came in October 2013, when she became the first Indian woman to score a double century in ODI cricket. Playing for Maharashtra against Gujarat, he scored an unbeaten 224 from 150 balls in the West Zone Under-19 tournament at the Alembic Cricket Ground in Vadodara.
In the 2016 Women’s Challenger Trophy, Mandhana scored three half-centuries for India Red, and scored an unbeaten 62 off 82 balls in the final against India Blue to help her team win the trophy. With 192 runs, she emerged as the top scorer of the tournament.
In September 2016, Smriti Mandhana was signed a one-year deal with the Brisbane Heat for the Women’s Big Bash League (WBBL), and became one of the first two Indians to sign up for the league, along with Harmanpreet Kaur. In January 2017, while playing against the Melbourne Renegades, she injured her knee after she fell awkwardly while fielding after bowling the final ball. He was ruled out of the rest of the tournament, which he ended with 89 runs in 12 innings.
In June 2018, Smriti Mandhana signed for Western Storm, the defending champions of the Kia Super League, becoming the first Indian to play in the league. In November 2018, she was named in the Hobart Hurricanes’ squad for the 2018–19 Women’s Big Bash League season.
International career
Smriti Mandhana made her Test debut in August 2014 against England at Wormsley Park. He scored 22 and 51 in his first and second innings respectively to help his team win the match. In the second innings, he shared an opening-wicket partnership of 76 with Thirush Kamini in a chase of 182.
In the second ODI of India’s tour of Australia in 2016 at Hobart’s Bellerive Oval, Mandhana scored her maiden international century (102 off 109 balls). Mandhana was the only Indian player to be named in the ICC Women’s Team of the Year 2016. Mandhana came into the squad for the 2017 World Cup after recovering from an injury sustained in the WBBL in January that year.
He made his World Cup debut with 90 against England in Derby in the first match of the group matches. He helped his team win by 35 runs, and was named player of the match. After that he completed his second century (106 *) in ODI against West Indies. Mandhana was part of the Indian team that reached the final of the 2017 Women’s Cricket World Cup, where the team lost to England by nine runs.
Smriti Mandhana scored the fastest fifty for India in just 24 balls in the Women’s T20 against New Zealand in February 2019. In March 2018, she scored a half-century in just 30 balls for India in a Women’s T20 International match. Century against Australia in the 2017–18 India Women’s Tri-Nation Series. The following month, she was named Player of the Series for the three Women’s ODIs played in England.
On 3 August 2018, Smriti Mandhana scored the first century in the 2018 Women’s Cricket Super League. In October 2018, she was named in India’s squad for the Women’s World T20 tournament in the West Indies. Before the tournament, he was named as the star of the team. During the tournament, she became the third cricketer from India to score 1,000 runs in T20 matches. She ended that year as the leading run-scorer in women’s ODIs with 669 at an average of 66.90. For which she was voted ICC Women’s Cricketer of the Year and ICC Women’s ODI Player of the Year.
In February 2019, she was named as the captain of the India women’s T20I team for three matches against England. She became the youngest (22 years and 229 days) T20 captain for India when she led the women’s team against England in the first T20 at Guwahati.
In May 2019, she won the International Women’s Cricketer of the Year award at the CEAT International Cricket Awards 2019. In November 2019, during the series against the West Indies, she became the third fastest cricketer to score 2,000 runs in women’s ODIs, in terms of innings, in her 51st innings. In January 2020, she was named in India’s squad for the 2020 ICC Women’s T20 World Cup in Australia.
In May 2021, Smriti Mandhana was named in India’s Test squad for their only match against England. In August 2021, he was also named in India’s Test squad for their only match against Australia. In the first innings of the match, he scored his maiden century in Test cricket. She became the first Indian woman cricketer to score a century in both ODIs and Tests in Australia.
