Attack is the best form of defence as well – Smriti Mandhana ahead of one-off Test against England-W

The Indian women’s cricket team will be in action in the Test format after a long time as they host England in a one-off Test, beginning on December 14th at Mumbai. 

Ahead of the clash, Smriti had a few things to say about the essence of the team and how they are shifting gears in modern day cricket. 

In the pre-match presser against England, Mandhana highlighted the approach taken by the Indian women’s team, stating, “If you take a lot of precautions, you are complicating a lot of things for yourself. Whatever Test matches I have played, we’ve just told ourselves to watch the ball and play.”

She further added, “Definitely shots can come whenever it is needed but it is not like how you play T20 where every third or fourth ball is a needed shot. That is the only thing that we need to tell ourselves. If someone has the shots and this is their first time playing a Test, I think that is just their way of playing.”

Smriti continued, “Attack is the best form of defence as well. So it depends on the way they want to play. It depends. For instance, how Shafali bats and how I bat are totally different. You cannot expect both of us to bat in one particular mould. As I have said, every time I have played a Test match after a white ball series, or just in between white ball series is whatever we have thought, watch the ball and react.”

She concluded by saying, “Not just stress about what is it going to do. Definitely in two days we will understand what sort of a batswing we want to get in or how we actually play but we don’t think that we will stress on that a lot.”