"Her personality is quite introverted" - Ellyse Perry on Smriti Mandhana's captaincy for RCB in WPL 2024
Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) all-rounder Ellyse Perry has hailed her teammate and skipper Smriti Mandhana for the latter's efforts in gelling the team together during the WPL 2024 season.
Perry shed light on how Mandhana works on building a great relationship with each individual in the RCB team and ensures that they are emotionally connected and play for each other when they get onto the field.
In a media interaction arranged by RCB, here's what Ellyse Perry had to say about Smriti Mandhana's captaincy and how the team has evolved over the two seasons:
"Smriti has led the group brilliantly. Her personality is quite introverted. So she is so big on developing relationships with each player and making sure she knows that we are supporting her. There's so much upside to that and the fact that we can step on the field knowing and supporting each other. Hopefully, that keeps building for us."
Perry also believes one of the main reasons why RCB managed to significantly improve their performances from last year was the growing camaraderie between the players. She feels the RCB camp is a whole lot calmer and knows what needs to be done ahead of the playoffs.
Ellyse Perry on how RCB reacted to heartbreaking loss
RCB lost their penultimate league-stage game against the Delhi Capitals (DC) by just one run and understandably the likes of Richa Ghosh were in tears. However, Ellyse Perry claimed that while it was disheartening to an extent, RCB found a way to put it behind them and focus on the process of getting ready for what was ahead.
On this, she stated:
"We got so close the last match against Delhi and so it was tough loss, but it was also important to keep things in perspective. The sun always comes up the next day and no matter how hard it feels at the time, it is just a game of sport. We had a really good training session the next day and we just stuck together. The overwhelming thing was really that we had another opportunity to play."
The process worked incredibly well as RCB beat the Mumbai Indians (MI) by seven wickets in their final league game to make it to the playoffs. Ellyse Perry was the Player of the Match for her sensational figures of 6/15 and 40* in the chase.