Women’s T20 Challenge 2024: Trailblazers’skipper Smriti Mandhana said that losing wickets in clusters did not help her team against the Supernovas in the opening match of the Women’s T20 Challenge at the MCA (Maharashtra Cricket Association) stadium in Pune on Monday, May 23.
After being asked to 164, the Trailblazers made an impressive start courtesy of a 39-run partnership between Hayley Matthews and Mandhana. From there, the Trailblazers lost their way to a large extent and managed to score only 113/9, losing the match by 49 runs.
Mandhana, who scored 34 at the top order, reckoned that her team needed to rotate the strike more than to put the bowlers under pressure.
Come Back Stronger
“Definitely not the result we wanted, we did well to restrict them to 160. On the batting, we were to chase it but lost too many wickets, that’s something we need to work on. We lost the track after the 9th over. We need to take more singles and doubles, that is something underrated,” Mandanna was quoted as saying.
She also added, “I told the bowlers the wicket is good and the outfield is quick, so they should not panic. We need to think about the batting line-up, with the rest we will come back stronger in the upcoming games”.
The Trailblazers will next face Deepti Sharma’s Velocity in their must-win match in Pune on May 26.