on Wednesday said India may have won the ODI World Cup recently, but the team still needs to work hard in the shortest format, with the inaugural edition of the Women’s Champions Trophy set to be held early next year.
India will host the six-team tournament in the T20 format at Mumbai’s Brabourne Stadium and the BCA Stadium in Vadodara from February 14 to 28. Mandhana is set to lead India in her first assignment as full-time captain when the hosts take on Zimbabwe in a three-match T20I series starting here on Friday, followed by three ODIs in Vadodara. She took charge from .
Mandhana said India would look to make the most of the six T20Is ahead of the Women’s Champions Trophy. “The first bilateral [series] with Zimbabwe, I think, is very exciting. It is our first time playing with them. You can learn a lot from them [Zimbabwe]. But again, we have six T20 matches before the Champions Trophy as an Indian team, so we will look to set standards as an Indian team [as to] how we approach the next three months leading up to the Champions Trophy,” Mandhana said.
Mandhana said there were several areas in which the Indian team needed to improve in the shortest format. “We have won the World Cup in the last one-and-a-half years, but there were a few things which we needed to work on in the T20 format especially,” she said.