Women’s T20 Challenge: Have to fire from the very first match: Trailblazers’ skipper Smriti Mandhana

Bengaluru, Nov. 5: The Women’s T20 Challenge got off to a thrilling start on Wednesday, with Velocity notching up a five-wicket win over Supernovas in Sharjah.

In the second match, Trailblazers are set to take on Velocity at the Sharjah Cricket Stadium on Thursday and ahead of the match, Trailblazers skipper Smriti Mandhana said that she is more excited than nervous to get back to playing cricket.

Speaking at the pre-match press conference, Mandhana said that everyone was excited to get back after the seven month break due to the coronavirus. “I think everyone is more excited than nervous because we are going to go out there after seven months,” said Mandhana.

Despite being seven months off the ground, Mandhana said that the break did not affect her too much and she looked at it as a positive time-out.

“I would say the last two-three months were difficult, in the first few months I spent time with my family and I was enjoying that time. In the last two-three months, we wanted to get back to playing. We started training one and a half or two months back,” stated Mandhana.

“I would not say it affected a lot, I would say it was more of a positive time out. We got to work on our batting and fitness and come out with a positive mindset.

The skipper further added that the team will need to fire from the first match. “Given the condition that we have not played matches for the last seven months, it is going to be tough (short tournament). We have to fire from the very first match because we do not have a lot of matches to make a comeback or something. So, it is important to start firing from the first match,” the skipper said ahead of their first game.

(With inputs from agencies)