Tag: Smriti Mandhana

In The News

India’s Women’s Cricket: Rawal and Mandhana’s Record Partnerships

As I write this post, my prayers – along with those of millions of cricket fans in India- are with Pratika Rawal. The opening batter sustained an injury while fielding in India’s match vs Bangladesh a few days ago. India has qualified for the semi-finals of the ICC ODI World Cup for Women. The next game against Australia is most crucial. It is a do or die match as the loser gets eliminated from the tournament. Sadly, it appears unlikely that she will be able to play in this match.

Pratika, a 25 year old from Delhi, has carved a niche for herself as the opening partner for Smriti Mandhana in the Indian Women’s Cricket team. Her presence in the match versus Australia would have meant a lot to the Indian team. Let me explain why.

India has always done well when Mandhana and Rawal have given them a solid start. The match versus New Zealand a few days ago was again extremely important for India. They had to win to enter the semi-finals. Mandhana and Rawal scored 212 in their opening partnership to give them a dream start. Both scored centuries- Mandhana 109, and Rawal 122.

Smriti Mandhana and Pratika Rawal : Picture courtesy: Firstpost

This was the highest partnership for India in the Women’s World Cup. They broke the previous record of 184 between Mandhana and Harmanpreet Kaur in 2022.

This opening pair has shown promise to be potential world beaters. In the year or so that they opened the batting for India Women, they have put together 7 century opening partnerships. Out of these, 5 have been in this calendar year! This is the most for Indian women and is jointly the second highest in the history of women’s cricket. In January 2025, they started with a 233 run opening stand against Ireland with Rawal scoring 154 and Mandhana 135.

Till date, they have the distinction of having scored 1557 runs in the calendar year 2025. This is fairly close to the highest so far- 1635 runs by the legendary pair of Sachin Tendulkar and Saurav Ganguly in 1998. In the ongoing ODI World Cup, they are No 1 and No 2 in the runs scored- Mandhana 365 in 7 matches and Rawal 308 in 6.

Yes, India’s women cricketers have truly come of age. Recently, Smriti Mandhana scored a century in 51 balls- making her effort the fastest century for an Indian- man or woman- in One Day Internationals. Till now the fastest 100 in an ODI was by Virat Kohli and came off 52 balls! Mandhana has hit 29 sixes this year which is a world record for women beating South Africa’s Lizelle Lee who hit 28 in 2017.

Pratika has shown that she has matured vastly as a young batter. She was the fastest in women’s cricket to reach 500 ODI runs- reaching this in just 8 innings. She beat Charlotte Edwards of England who had achieved this way back in 1997. She recently became the joint fastest in the world to reach 1000 ODI runs achieving the feat in 23 innings.

With Pratika’s injury, unfortunately it appears most unlikely that she and Mandhana will break the Tendulkar-Ganguly record for the most runs as an opening pair in a calendar year. After the World Cup, the Indian women tour Australia in early 2026. Let’s hope their partnership continues to flourish there too. Mandhana and Rawal certainly have it in them to be world beaters in the opening slots for women’s cricket.

In The News, My Take

RCB- Romanticising The Loser

As a die-hard fan of this cricket franchise, I feel the think tank of Royal Challengers Bengaluru have had it all too easy for far too long! Year after year we have flattered to deceive. I can’t ever forget the first match of the inaugural IPL in 2008. Brendon McCullum of KKR took us to the cleaners scoring 158, we scored 82 – and we haven’t fully recovered yet! I have watched virtually every match of RCB- both men and women- over the years so I write this with considerable anguish.

The men’s team haven’t won even once in 18 years. This makes me believe RCB has made a class act of romanticising the loser! A powerful PR ecosystem and social media presence have almost indoctrinated fans in their millions to believe it is perfectly ok to lose -as long as you try!!! Instead of a strong killer instinct with little or no patience for failures, we seemingly have a bland acceptance of fate.

I hope and pray 2025 will be a different outcome but based on recent events in the ongoing Women’s IPL, I have my grave doubts. Which leads me to the question: who is responsible for decisions ? The coach, captain, owners or none of them?? Who is the think tank for RCB? Are they in any way accountable for results?

In the Women’s IPL, RCB finished a disappointing 4th in the first edition but did really well to win the championship last year. This means we are the defending champions in 2025.

Most teams do well in their home grounds- there are many reasons for this most of which are quite obvious. We somehow don’t. The fact that RCB have lost both home games played so far is shocking to say the least. Yes, of course, they tried their best; there were injuries which prevented other good players from playing etc, but why did we make some elementary blunders???

Here are two, according to me: 1. In the first match at Bengaluru versus a strong Mumbai Indians team, knowing the size of the ground, the tendency of batters to try to hit sixes, how come we had a slow over rate that penalised us in the end. With one fielder less in the outfield, was it smart cricket? 2. In the same match, wasn’t someone keeping an eye on who’s bowling? We know the 19th and 20 th overs are the most crucial. Leaving the 19th over to Kanika Ahuja, a well-meaning but not the leading spinner of the team was asking for trouble. We could have perhaps won but we lost this game in the last ball!!!

And more blunders came up in the very next match versus less fancied UP Warriorz. 1. Renuka Singh giving away 17 runs in that one over virtually gave away the match. She may have the Purple Cap but is not the best bowler at the death. 2. Worse was to follow. In the Super Over, Kim Garth was excellent to restrict UP Warriorz to just 8 runs. We needed 9 to win. Instead of sending in one in red hot form- Elyse Perry ( holder of the Orange Cap with 235 runs and an average of 117 and a strike rate of 160 including 90 not out in 56 balls in this very match), we sent Richa Ghosh – and worst of all Smriti Mandhana went in herself when she has not been a great player of spin bowling. Sophie Eccelstone added to her batting performance of 33 which got MI to the super over, by defending 8 runs. She gave away only 4!! How can you win matches if you can’t score 5 runs in the crucial make or break over????

Still we will rationalise and say it was only a game, they did their best, we are sorry to disappoint our fans, we will come back stronger next time etc etc. Another example of romanticising the loser!

I sometimes wonder based on what I have seen in the IPL over the years, whether it is the owner’s ego that propels the team’s urge to win! Looks like the Ambanis, the Goenkas, the Marans, and SRK don’t take kindly to defeat- though I am sure they accept they can’t win every game every year. RCB has no owner in that sense. We started off with a single owner, Dr Vijay Mallya. Love him or hate him he was there in your face. Today RCB is owned by United Spirits Limited, part of the Dieago Group. It is a corporate entity. Winning or losing a IPL title may not matter much to the company executives- as it does to us fans. They are more interested in revenues from advertising, publicity campaigns, brand, marketing, and social media presence. We are more interested in winning matches!