Smriti Mandhana is one of the biggest names that India has produced in the women’s cricket scene. She has been a pillar of strength in the Indian batting line up especially in the T20 format, where she has played crucial innings while opening the batting. In the latest game against Thailand at the Women’s Asia Cup, Smriti Mandhana, who was the stand-in captain in absence of Harmanpreet Kaur completed a significant T20I milestone.
In the match, Smriti Mandhana completed 100 T20I matches for the Indian women’s team. This is a huge landmark since she is now only the second women’s cricketer after Harmanpreet Kaur from India to breach the landmark. Overall she is the fourth Indian after Rohit Sharma, Harmanpreet Kaur, and Virat Kohli to breach the 100-game landmark in the shortest format of the game.
Here are the Indian cricketers with most appearances in T20I cricket for the country.
Rohit Sharma – 142 matches
Harmanpreet Kaur- 131 matches
Virat Kohli- 109 matches
Smriti Mandhana- 100 matches
Smriti Mandhana has scored 2,373 runs in her 100 matches and is the second highest run-scorer in the shortest format of the women’s game for India after Harmanpreet Kaur. Overall she is the fourth highest run scorer in T20Is for India after Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and Harmanpreet. She is also only one of five Indians to breach the 2,000 run mark in the shortest format of the game.
Coming back to the match against Thailand, the Indian bowlers were on a rampage as they dismissed the minnows for just 37 runs inside 16 overs. The Indian spinners were on top of their game with Sneh Rana being the pick of the bowlers with figures of 3/9.
Chasing a pretty easy target, India pulled off the target in just 6 overs for the loss of jus one wicket, thus winning their final group game comprehensively by 9 wickets. India have qualified for the semi-final of the Women’s Asia Cup with 5 wins from their 6 games.
