Gold Coast, Sep 30: India opener Smriti Mandhana familiarised herself with the pink ball by keeping one in her kit bag for the last three months, looking at it on and off while trying to “understand” it.
Little did Mandhana know that her team would enter its first-ever day/night Test match with just two days of training sessions with the pink ball. The stylish player was batting on a sublime 80 when inclement weather brought an early end to the opening day of their historic Test, against Australia.
“We just had two sessions with pink ball. I was coming from the Hundred (in England) so I didn’t really get much time to play with pink ball, but during Hundred, I just ordered a pink kookaburra ball, just to keep it in my room because I knew that there is going to be a Test match, so that I can just look at the ball and understand. “I have actually not batted, I batted for just two sessions but the pink ball was there in my kit bag for last two and half, three months. I don’t know why did I carry it, I thought I will have a session but I really didn’t get time to do that,” Mandhana said during a virtual press conference on Thursday. (PTI)
