Smriti Mandhana reveals the secret of her big-hitting

After losing the 1st match, India Women came back strongly and won the second One-day match against the visitors South Africa Women yesterday. During the match, South Arica Women asked to bat first by the hosts and scored just 157 runs on the board.

The visitors removed Jemimah Rodrigues in the 4th over but that didn't affect India as they went on to chase down the target with more than 20 overs and 9 wickets in hand. Smiriti Mandhana has been in fabulous touch with the bat as she scored an unbeaten 80 off just 64 balls with a strike-rate of 125 including 10 fours and 3 sixes to her name.

Punam Rout supported her on the other end and remained unbeaten on 62. After that, the left-hander credited her mother Smita who helped her to maintain the fitness with healthy vegetarian food during the lockdown period. 

“My mummy is more diet-conscious than me. She is very strict. She doesn’t allow me to have junk type of food and gets very angry on me if I consume such food. But yes, mom has been very helpful in keeping my diet in order. She used to send me protein laddu, dry fruit laddu and used to tell me to eat those stuff in between matches, which has definitely aided me,”

“In the first match, there was a little bit of moisture in the initial overs, so I was trying to leave many deliveries. In this match though, the wicket was quite good to bat on. So I just said to myself, let’s try and be not out till the end. Just try and react to the ball.”

“I think I am most comfortable when I react according to the ball. If I premeditate that I have to play in a certain way, then I get out. So I just watched the ball and played accordingly. Initially, I got the ball in my areas, so that helped me get underway,” the 24-year-old said to Jhulan Goswami in a video posted by BCCI's official website.