England Women Vs India Women, 1st T20I: Smriti Mandhana Excited To Reunite With Opener Shafali Verma

As India gear up to face England in the first of five T20Is at Trent Bridge on Saturday, vice-captain Smriti Mandhana is looking forward to rekindling a successful opening partnership with Shafali Verma, who makes her return to the format.

Shafali, who last featured in a T20I during India’s group-stage exit at the 2024 World Cup, has fought her way back into the squad on the back of prolific domestic and WPL performances.

Mandhana, who stood in for an unwell Harmanpreet Kaur at the pre-match press conference, heaped praise on Shafali’s journey back to the national setup. “She’s had an amazing year,” Mandhana said in the presser.

“Once the setback had come, she went to domestic cricket, scored bucket-loads of runs and had an amazing WPL. No one had any doubts about her talent, the way she had come into the Indian team and dominated. She is a world-class player and always will be, but for her to go back and do what she did in the last year was amazing to watch. She deserves this comeback and I’m really excited to open with her again.”

Shafali's numbers tell the story of her resurgence. She topped the Senior Women’s One-Day Trophy charts with 527 runs at a strike rate of 152.31 and an average of 75.29, and led Haryana to glory in the Senior Women’s One-Day Challenger Trophy with 414 runs at a strike rate of 145.26 and an average of 82.80.

She also finished as the fourth-highest run-scorer in the WPL, amassing 304 runs at a strike rate of 152.76.

Mandhana and Shafali have already formed one of the most formidable opening pairs in women’s T20Is, sitting second on the all-time list for most partnership runs with 2636 at a partnership run rate of 7.90.

Mandhana also expressed enthusiasm for India’s fresh seam-bowling talent in the absence of Renuka Singh and Pooja Vastrakar. “The WPL has been good in terms of finding new people and of course the domestic system as well, the amount of matches the girls play nowadays. All the girls have rich experience in the domestic format. I’m really excited to see them. Young talent, whenever they come in, it’s always very exciting.

"Everyone’s been prepping well and what better place than England to come in as a pacer? Of course, they’ll take a lot of lessons out of it and I’m sure they’ll do the job for the team.”

On the other side, England pacer Lauren Bell is relishing the prospect of going up against her Southern Brave teammate Mandhana. “I’m looking forward to bowling at Smriti,” Bell said.

“I’ve obviously played with her, we’ve had a few net battles at the Brave before, so that’ll be a good challenge, playing against her. It’s exciting to be up against some of the best players and that normally brings the best out when you’re playing against the best.”

Bell, who worked on technical adjustments to her action last summer, believes she is in a good place but still striving for improvement.

“In terms of that whole chapter, I’d say I’ve got into a really good place and I feel really, really happy. But I don’t think you can ever say you’re complete as a bowler. There’s always stuff that I want to get better, but the big shift and the big change, I’m feeling in a really good place… hopefully we’ve moved on.”

As the two sides prepare for battle, the spotlight will firmly be on the Mandhana-Shafali pairing and how England’s pace attack, led by Bell, rises to the challenge.