Smriti Mandhana again targeted PakistanImage Credit source: Getty Images
Before the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup 2026, the player whose form Team India was most worried about, was eliminated in the very first match. Team India’s star batsman and vice-captain Smriti Mandhana destroyed the Pakistani bowlers in the very first match and scored a strong half-century. Mandhana also took advantage of the fielding mistakes of Pakistani players and laid the foundation for the team to reach a good score by scoring 68 runs.
India and Pakistan were facing each other in their first match of this World Cup on Sunday 14th June at the Edgbaston Stadium in Birmingham. Team India batted first but Shefali Verma made an explosive start by hitting a six on the very first ball of the innings but she was also out in the same over. Soon Jemimah Rodriguez also returned to the pavilion without doing anything. In such a situation, the responsibility was on vice-captain Smriti Mandhana and captain Harmanpreet Kaur.
Harman was having trouble playing freely but Mandhana started thrashing the Pakistani bowlers. He targeted every bowler and started collecting boundaries. However, during this period, Pakistan also lost 3 opportunities to dismiss Mandhana and Mandhana punished all three with excellent innings. Even before the half-century, the Pakistani fielder missed an easy catch of Mandhana and then lost the chance of run out after a few balls.
Mandhana took advantage of this and scored a half-century in just 34 balls. After fifty, she again missed an easy catch and on this basis Mandhana played an excellent inning of 68 runs in just 44 balls, which included 9 fours and 2 sixes. This inning of his laid the foundation of a big score, which was taken to the score of 170 by Richa Ghosh’s explosive inning of 34 runs in 17 balls.
(The news is being updated)
