India's Smriti Mandhana Looks Forward to T20 World Cup Prep

With the Women's T20 World Cup just a year away, India is set to begin preparations with a five-match T20I series in England starting June 28. India's vice-captain Smriti Mandhana spoke about the importance of this series in preparing for the World Cup.

"I think this five T20s will be a good prep for a lot of the girls and for us to see the conditions and how they suit our game too. Five T20s is a good amount of cricket in the same conditions just one year before the World Cup."

Mandhana also mentioned that regular captain Harmanpreet Kaur was unwell, but denied that she wouldn't take part in the match.

The Indian team has been preparing for the England white-ball series, which includes three ODIs after the T20Is. Mandhana felt the preparation was good and ideal leading up to the series.

"It's been a good 25 days of prep, we had batters and bowlers camp at Bangalore at NCA and that was also very targeted and specific, keeping in mind this tour."

Mandhana also spoke about the importance of improvisation in the T20 format, and how the team needs to keep improving and adapting to opposition plans.

"I think in the T20 game, there's a lot of scope of improvement for. And not only me, I mean, most of the batters, it's a format which you have to keep improvising and keep improving because the other teams keep getting you, keep planning against the way you bat."

India's pace bowling will be led by Arundathi Reddy, with Amanjot Kaur, Kranti Gaud, and Sayali Satghare sharing the workload. Mandhana is excited to see the young pace bowlers bring their domestic experience to the fore in the T20s against England.

"[We have] …A new look pace-bowling unit because unfortunately, there are a few injuries which had happened over the last four to five months, but really exciting, I mean [the] WPL has been good in terms of finding new people and of course, the domestic system as well."