'It was a much needed game time for all other batters': Smriti Mandhana

Smriti Mandhana. Pic/AFP

Stand-in India skipper Smriti Mandhana was pleased to see the middle-order batters getting some much-needed runs under their belt against Nepal here on Tuesday ahead of the women's Asia Cup semifinals. With regular skipper Harmanpreet Kaur skipping the match and India sitting pretty at the top of the group, Mandhana decided to shuffle the batting order to give time to the other batters in the middle during their last group match against minnows Nepal. Mandhana, a regular opener, didn't bat at the top as Shafali Verma (81) and Dayalan Hemalatha (47) opened the innings and smashed their way to 122 in 14 overs to lay the foundation.

S Sajana (10) and Jemmimah Rodrigues (28) then took them to a solid 178 for 3, which proved enough as Nepal could manage 96 for nine in 20 overs to suffer a 82-run loss. "As an opener you don't get a lot of games where you don't bat. Much needed game time for all the other batters. The middle order hasn't batted in the previous games," Mandhana said during the post-match presentation. "The conditions were different and it is always good to have game time under your belt. The middle order didn't get time in the South Africa series as well, so good they could spend some time in the middle." Mandhana said each tournament since the last few months has been a step towards preparation for the World T20 scheduled to be held in Bangladesh later this year.

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"Not only this tournament, but also in the last five or six months, the preparations started post WPL, there are a lot of fine tuning to be done and we have to keep improving, cannot go into a World Cup under prepared," she said. India might play Bangladesh in the semifinals, an opponent they had comprehensively defeated in a recent away series but Mandhana said they are not going to lower their guard. "You don't take any team (semifinal opponents) lightly, we have two days to rest and practice before we go out and apply ourselves." Adjudged player-of-the-match for her blistering 48-ball knock 81, Shafali Verma said she backed her strength and the execution was good. "The consistency is improving but I could have finished the innings today," said the opener, who slammed 12 fours and a six during her match-winning innings. Shafali had scored the fastest double century in women's Tests during a match against South Africa in Chennai last month and she said it gave her a lot of confidence.

"Double hundred is big for any batter and I got plenty of confidence from that innings, I wasn't in good form before that but the innings helped me get back my confidence." Nepal skipper Indu Barma said they will look to come back stronger after taking a lot of lessons from their matches against India and Pakistan. "I am proud of my team. The effort we put in, we realised our weakness and will come back stronger. "It was a great exposure to play against India. I am happy with my team, after 10 overs the bowlers got good momentum and restricted them to below 200. We got good experience from this tournament by playing against India and Pakistan. We made some good memories," she said.

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