Pune, May 22: Since the time the possibility of having a full-fledged women’s Indian Premier League (IPL) has come, many have been wondering that the upcoming women’s T20 Challenge, starting from Monday at MCA Stadium, will be the last edition of the three-team event.
Now, opener Smriti Mandhana, captain of defending champions Trailblazers, feels that while participating in the three-team event, the intention was always to produce their best cricket for women’s IPL to start quickly. Mandhana’s Trailblazers will open their title defence on Monday against Harmanpreet Kaur’s Supernovas.
“We all were really excited when we heard we would get an exhibition match which would lead up to IPL in some years. We always had this in our mind that we have to put out the best cricket possible to have a women’s IPL as early as we can,” said Mandhana in the pre-match virtual press conference.
“This tournament has been great in that sense that people are getting to see more of domestic talent. We have got a few talents out of this tournament like we saw Shafali (Verma) in Jaipur and kind of picked up from here. There were a few girls who came out of this tournament when we saw them at this stage, so this tournament has been good for the last three-four years,” added the left-hander.
“Personally, I have been working on T20 cricket now because we have a lot of T20s to be played in this one year. So, definitely trying to play a bit more shots than I used to play. I am working a lot on those things and will be good to go out there as we had a good T20 domestic season and just looking to continue that in this tournament.”
Mandhana is entering the tournament on the back of captaining Maharashtra to the runners-up trophy in the senior women’s T20 League. (IANS)
