London, July 20: Prolific opener Smriti Mandhana acknowledged that competing at Lord’s turned out to be a tough test for India batters who could not adapt to the testing conditions and were indiscreet in their shot selection during the second One-day against England.
After making a strong start to the series with a four-wicket in the opening match at Southampton, India received an eight-wicket hammering in a rain-curtailed game at the Lord’s on Saturday night.
Except vice-captain Mandhana (42) and Deepti Sharma (30 not out), no India player could offer a solid resistance to England bowlers as they managed only 143 for eight in 29 overs.
“I think as a batting unit, we couldn’t adapt to the conditions quickly. We tried to play some shots which were maybe not, like, it was not easy on these sort of wickets, especially Lord’s,” Mandhana told reporters at the post-match press conference.
Mandhana did admit that prolonged rain break before the start of the game did affect the concentration. “Rain curtailed matches are always very hard in terms of getting your focus right because, of course, it was a long wait period. And losing the toss in these sort of matches doesn’t help a lot. But, yeah, it’s a good test for all of us. There are a few things which we could have gotten better.”
The southpaw said getting runs at Lord’s is always a grind and her team will return after taking some crucial lessons.
India had lost the World Cup final to the hosts here back in 2017. India lost the closely-fought final by nine runs but the team’s performance did raise the profile of women’s cricket back home. Mandhana said the last eight years have been phenomenal for women cricketers in India. (PTI)
