Image Credit- BCCI
The captain of the
RCB women’s team, Smriti Mandhana, has stated that the team has worked
extremely hard behind the scenes following a disappointing WPL debut season.
The first edition saw RCB miss out on the playoffs; this year, they made amends
by defeating the defending champion Mumbai Indians to secure their advancement.
“We couldn’t step up and play the cricket we wanted to play [last
year],” she said. “But yeah, last one year, a lot of thoughts have
gone into this. A lot of hard work behind the scenes, not only from my side but
all the support staff, and the RCB management. For them to show their faith in
all of us was just amazing.
“You know, the only conversation they had was that ‘this is your team,
make it the way you want to’. So that was really nice from their side to do
that. And yeah, I wouldn’t say that [this has been a] really satisfying
campaign still, but we had a lot of ups and downs. We started off really well
and then had a little bit of dip. But that’s how WPL and T20 cricket is. You’ll
have good days and bad days.”
Mandhana revealed
that they were determined to not worry about the results around them for their
qualification and instead focussed on winning the games they had in hand.
“We always knew that out of the two if we win any – even that 1-run game –
we would have made the knockouts. So, we are not looking at what other teams
are doing or what’s happening, what’s the equation, the net run rate etc
because that can sometimes really take away the cricket. We talked about ‘let’s
treat it as a quarterfinal, a semifinal and then the final, and not make it too
complicated. Let’s go out there and play the best cricket we can’, and that’s
what we’ve tried to do.
“And yeah, we didn’t really complicate it a lot. We just spoke on things
which went away in the Delhi match and things that didn’t go our way. We had
decent chats and one-on-ones with a lot of the players. And including Luke
[Williams, the head coach]. He’s been just amazing just handling the whole
group and their emotions. Especially I think with RCB and the kind of fan base
[it has], it’s not an easy thing to come in in your first year and be able to
do that. As Indians we are used to it. But for someone from coming outside to
do that, I think he’s just done an amazing job. Even the support staff I think
they have been brilliant.”