Mumbai: “Playing against my compatriots at the first ever WPL would be fun, Jemimah (Rodrigues) does not like to be disturbed while batting so I would like to poke her a bit when facing her, Harmanpreet is such a great competitor would enjoy playing against her, it would bring out the best in me,” said a smiling Smriti Mandhana, the captain of Royal Challenges Bangalore (RCB). Mandhana was addressing a press conference in Mumbai on Saturday.
Smriti said that she feels no pressure due to captaincy “I have been captaining teams since I was 16 years old, so I don’t feel any pressure regarding it, also I have a pool of experienced players in my squad, especially foreign players, whom I have encouraged to approach me with their suggestions.”
Prathamesh Mishra chairman of RCB expressed happiness at the composition of the RCB squad “we are very satisfied with the squad that we have been able to choose, especially the captain.”
Mishra said that promoting women’s sport can lead to increasing the participation of women in the work force, which in turn would be a boon to the nation’s economy.
Smriti expressed confidence that the WPL would take the women’s game to the next level in India “the WPL is a landmark tournament in the history of women’s cricket, and I hope we all will be inspiring a lot of women to take up the sport through our performance and presence. It’s extremely encouraging for us to see a franchise like RCB to commit to this larger cause of equal participation of women and invest a round sum of money to get a team and contribute to the growth of India”
