Smiriti Mandhana First Ever Indian Cricketer to Play for Kia League

Indian Crush

Mandhana's family is closely involved in her cricketing activities. Her father Shrinivas, a chemical distributor, takes care of her cricket programme, her mother Smita is in charge of her diet, clothing and other organisation aspects, and her brother Shravan still bowls to her in the nets.

T20 Tournament
Elegant Indian opener Smriti Mandhana is set to become first Indian cricketer to play in England’s Kia Super League (T20 tournament) beginning July 22.

The 21-year-old was signed by Western Storm ahead of the upcoming edition that features six teams. Mandhana has played 40 T20 Internationals matches so far and scored over 826 runs with the highest score of 76 with an average of 23.60, her strike rate is 112.84.

Smriti Mandhana has also played in Australia’s Women’s Big Bash League for Brisbane Heat. The young Indian opener captained the IPL Trailblazers in the one-off exhibition game organised by the BCCI last month.

“We are really excited that Smriti will be joining us. She is one of the brightest young talents in the game at the moment. Although she is still young, she has a great deal of experience of the game at the highest level and we believe that she will prove to be an excellent signing,” said Trevor Griffin, coach of Western Storm.

Talking about her appearance in Kia Super League, Smriti said, “To be the first Indian player to appear in the tournament is a real honour and I hope that I can help Western Storm to more success.”