On September 24, 2019, Smriti Mandhana became the first Indian cricketer(male/female) to represent India in 50 consecutive T20s. Achieving such a feat at a young age, since her debut she has made and broken many records.
Smriti Mandhana played for Maharashtra's U-19 team since she was 11 yrs old. Four years later she made it to the senior team. The left-handed opening batsman made her T20 debut on April 5, 2013, against Bangladesh. This debut was a result of a match in October 2013 when she became the first Indian woman to achieve a double-hundred in a one day game.
Playing for Maharashtra against Gujarat, she scored an unbeaten 224 off 150 balls in the West Zone Under-19 Tournament, at the Alembic Cricket Ground in Vadodara. Since then she has played a total of 59 matches out of which she has played 50 matches for India and rest for different T20 teams like Brisbane Heat(w) in Women's Big Bash League, Western Storm in Kia Super League and Trailblazers in Women's IPL. She has scored a total of 1319 T20 runs with an average of 24.88 and a strike rate of 119.25.
She is currently the Vice-captain of the Indian team under Harmanpreet Kaur and holder of 4th rank in ICC women's T20 ranking. As she also is the holder of 1st rank in ICC women's ODI ranking, Smriti never thinks about her rankings but focuses on how she could contribute to the team and win matches for India and how she can contribute more to the team. She likes to keep things simple and strives to improve herself. She also has the record as the youngest T20 captain for India at age 22 yrs and 229 days in a match against England, in Guwahati.
Earlier Suresh Raina held that record at the age of 23 yrs and 197 days. In 2016 she helped her team, India Red to win Women's Challenger Trophy, where in the tournament she scored three 50s in a total of 192 runs and in the final match scored unbeaten 62 off 82 against India Blue. She was the top scorer of the match. Smriti also holds the record of fastest 50 for India in women's T20 off 24 balls against New Zealand in February 2018.
Among many glories, she has been awarded Women Cricketer of the Year by ICC. She was also awarded the coveted Arjuna Award in 2018. Recently in May 2019, she was honored as International Women Cricketer of the Year by CEAT International Cricket Awards.
While in the ongoing series against South Africa, the second T20 had to be abandoned due to rain, we hope to see some action in the third T20 on 29 September and wish our women's cricket team for the win :)
