New captain Smriti Mandhana wants to win a World Cup
What's the story?
After topping the ICC Women's batting charts recently, Indian batter Smriti Mandhana has said that she now wants to win a World Cup for her country. She is set to lead India in the 3-match T20I series against England as regular captain Harmanpreet Kaur is injured.
The Women's T20 World Cup is scheduled to take place early next year in Australia. Having achieved a small cricketing goal by becoming the No.1 batter in the ICC women's rankings, Mandhana has now set her sights on winning a World Cup medal for the country.
The background
After a series of excellent knocks in recent games, Mandhana achieved her personal best ranking by going on top of the ICC Women's batting ranking list. She was also appointed as the captain of the T20 team after captain Harmanpreet Kaur was ruled out of the England series due to an injury.
Ahead of the 3-match series against England and her first series as a captain, the left-hander was very clear about her aspirations with the Indian Cricket team.
The details
Speaking to the media, Mandhana said, "As a kid when you start playing, you always think of winning a World Cup. Obviously, there are individual targets like, getting to World No.1 spot. And reaching there was really pleasing but now I have to work even harder. To stay there is much more important than getting there."
Reiterating her desire to win a World Cup, she added, "As a batter, the most important thing is to reach the ICC World No.1 position. Definitely, it was one of the small goals for me, but my major goal is to win the World Cup."
Mandhana also added that with just under a year to go for the T20 World Cup in Australia, the team is looking to finalize a core set of players for the tournament.
What's next?
India will now take on England in the 3-match series which sees a number of young faces in the squad. The first of those three matches will take place on Monday at Guwahati.