Smriti Mandhana

Arguably one of the best players in the world, Mandhana is the second Indian women’s cricketer to feature in a foreign T20 league. An attacking left-handed opening batter, Mandhana has grown as a cricketer ever since her India debut in 2013.

At just 11 years old, Mandhana was fast-tracked to the Maharashtra Under-19 side. Four years later, she was promoted to the senior team and announced her arrival with a stunning 155 on debut against a good Saurashtra bowling attack.

Her breakthrough came in 2013 when she became the first Indian woman to achieve a double-ton, scoring an unbeaten 224-run knock off just 150 balls in a West Zone Under-19 tournament.

In the same year, Mandhana made her international debut in a T20I game against Bangladesh and played a quickfire knock of 39 to guide India home.

The attacking player made her much-awaited Test debut against England in 2014, and in the second innings of her debut match, she slammed her maiden Test fifty as the Indian team defeated England in their own backyard.

In the second ODI of India’s tour of Australia, Mandhana scored her maiden international century (102), but in a losing cause. 

In 2016, the Indian star signed up for the Brisbane Heat and, alongside Harmanpreet Kaur, became one of the first two Indians to sign up for the league. She scored 89 runs in 12 innings and was ruled out of the tournament after a knee injury she suffered during the tournament.

Despite suffering a serious knee injury in the WBBL 2016, Mandhana was included in the Indian squad for the 2017 Women’s World Cup. She started the tournament with a bang, scoring 90 runs against England, and followed it up with her second century in ODI cricket against the Windies. India reached the finals of the tournament, but eventually lost to England.

The opener was part of the Western Storm squad for the 2018 Kia Women’s T20 Super League tournament. In a match against Lancashire, Mandhana blasted a 60-ball hundred and finished her innings on 102, and was the top scorer at the end of the tournament.

For her scintillating performances in the ODI format, where Mandhana averaged nearly 66.90, she was adjudged the ICC Women’s cricketer of the year for 2018, as well as the ICC ODI player of the year. 

In February 2019, Mandhana smashed the fastest fifty for India in a T20I off just 24 deliveries. 

If 2020 was the year Mandhana honed her rhythm amid global disruptions, then 2021 was when she turned the volume up, commanding the world stage with elegance, grit, and weighty willow. The early signs came in patches, but by October, she stitched together a masterpiece that had long eluded Indian women’s cricket: a Test century on Australian soil. Under grey skies in Carrara, she played an innings that felt like silk against sandpaper — fluent, firm, and defiant. Her 127, laced with 22 boundaries, wasn’t just her maiden Test ton but the first by an Indian woman in Australia, a feat that stitched her name into a rare fabric of cricketing excellence.

Her 216-ball vigil was the highest individual score by an Indian woman in Australia at the time and helped India draw the Test despite the odds stacked against them.

The accolades came swiftly, but not unexpectedly. The ICC crowned her the Rachael Heyhoe Flint Award winner for 2021, naming her the ICC Women’s Cricketer of the Year — a reward for her brilliance across formats. Her versatility wasn’t just in her strokeplay but in her temperament — whether negotiating Ellyse Perry under lights or threading gaps in the Caribbean sun.

The setting was Birmingham, and for the first time ever, women’s cricket was part of the Commonwealth Games. Under the pressure of history and high expectations, Mandhana rose with quiet flair. Her unbeaten 63 in the semifinal against England wasn't just a match-winning effort — it was a moment that reflected her growth as a player who now thrived on the big stage. India went on to clinch the silver medal, and Mandhana’s contributions throughout the campaign had her right at the centre of it all.

Back on the regular circuit, her bat stayed busy. Whether it was ODIs or T20Is, she remained India’s anchor at the top — never flashy for the sake of it, but always dependable.

The launch of the Women’s Premier League (WPL) signalled a seismic shift in women’s cricket, and it was Mandhana who found herself at the centre of it all. When the auction hammer fell, the numbers told a story — INR 3.4 crore, the highest bid of the day, and the highest ever in women’s franchise cricket. Royal Challengers Bangalore didn’t just sign a batter; they invested in a leader, a brand, a symbol of where the women’s game was headed.

With the price tag came responsibility — and the captaincy. Mandhana was named the skipper of RCB’s inaugural WPL campaign, a team stacked with talent but hungry for direction. Though the season had its stumbles, she wore the challenges with grace, always fronting up, always backing her team.

After a quiet start in the WPL’s debut season, she returned as captain of Royal Challengers Bangalore, this time with steel behind her smile. RCB lifted their maiden WPL trophy, and fittingly, it was Mandhana who led from the front — not just tactically, but with the bat. She finished as the second-highest run-scorer of the tournament, anchoring crucial games and driving the momentum when it mattered most.

But it was her form in international cricket that turned 2024 into a record-smashing saga.

The accolades, naturally, followed. She was named the ICC Women’s ODI Cricketer of the Year, a crown earned not just through numbers but consistency under pressure. And in early 2025, Wisden — cricket’s oldest and most revered voice — honoured her as the Leading Cricketer in the World, a rare and historic recognition that placed her in the highest tier of the sport’s greats.

Mandhana entered 2025 with the same quiet hunger that had always set her apart. And when the pressure dialled up again — this time in the Tri-Nation Series final in May — she delivered with characteristic calm. Facing Sri Lanka in the title clash, she compiled a fluent, commanding 11th ODI century, guiding India to a resounding 97-run win and the series trophy. It wasn’t just another hundred; it was a reaffirmation that her class wasn’t peaking — it was persisting.

She added weight to her legacy with every knock, and the rankings reflected it. By mid-2025, Mandhana had climbed to second in the ICC Women’s ODI batting rankings, a position earned not through one standout tour but through sustained excellence over the years. She had become more than a pillar in India’s lineup — she was now the standard against which others were measured.

Mandhana is the present and the future of this Indian team. A great strokeplayer who loves to take on the bowling attack, Mandhana is currently at the peak of her career, and the Indian team management will be hoping that she continues to perform at the highest level for the nation. 

(As of May 25)