WE WANT TO BE RECORD-BREAKERS
Beaumont and Taylor smash South Africa
This Sunday, England face their sternest test of the World Cup so far. It’s their round-robin match against the six-time champions, and current holders, Australia. On results so far, Australia will be the favourites given their unbeaten record, while England lost their opening match to India.
However, the form of ‘captain-calm’ Heather Knight (the tournament’s leading run-scorer after the first three matches) coupled with the coming of age of Nat Sciver with an exciting century against Pakistan and now Tammy Beaumont and Sarah Taylor scoring big hundreds in a recordbreaking match against South Africa, the home side are picking up momentum. Taylor’s run-making is a particularly heart-warming story, given her time out of the game to deal with anxiety.
If she is fit, Meg Lanning, Australia’s steely-eyed captain, will be determined to halt England in their tracks after posting wins over the West Indies, Sri Lanka, New Zealand and Pakistan. Australia were given a slight scare against Sri Lanka – at least when they were in the field – and England will have taken note of the way talented batter Chamari Atapattu made light of the holders’ bowling attack, striking a remarkable 178 not out.
It showed that Australia’s bowlers aren’t machines, even though it took an innings of extraordinary timing, poise and flourish for Atapattu to score as many as she did with wickets tumbling at the other end throughout.
With the ever-dependable Elyse Perry also making runs with the bat against New Zealand and Pakistan, Knight and her side will need to be at their best if they’re to take two points from their arch-rivals. It will be Knight’s first ODI against Australia as captain, and this could be a precursor to a semifinal meeting, or even the final itself, at Lord’s.
The other team with momentum behind them right now is India. At the start of the tournament they were considered an outside chance of making the final, due to them having come to the World Cup via the qualifying tournament.
But they only found themselves in the qualifying event by virtue of points forfeited in the ODI Championship when politics prevented them from playing their scheduled series against Pakistan.
They are a vastly better side than that, and have benefitted from playing competitive cricket in the build-up to the World Cup, firstly at the qualifiers, then in a quadrangular series in South Africa. They won both, and whilst they could have played with greater urgency in beating both Pakistan and Sri Lanka, they have now secured victories in 21 of their last 22 ODIs and are genuine contenders for the title.
India were given an additional boost just in time for the World Cup, with the return from injury of 20-year-old opener Smriti Mandhana. She batted nicely against England on tour here in 2014, but really made her mark in a T20 series in January 2016 when, wearing spectacles beneath her helmet, she helped India win their first ever bilateral series in Australia.
Her sublime and powerful lefthanded strokeplay has now been enjoyed on the global ODI stage, firstly when she came close to a maiden World Cup hundred in the win over England, and notably when she made an unbeaten 106 against the West Indies. She is rightfully winning plaudits, but was understated and modest when I chatted to her between matches in Derby this week
“The team has been doing really well in the last six months,” she said.
“We had a winning streak, and we’re in good shape. If the batsmen aren’t doing well, the bowlers are standing up for us, and if bowlers aren’t doing well the batsmen are covering.
“So we’re complementing each other really well, and hopefully we’ll continue the same form we’re in.
“Everyone dreams to score a World Cup hundred as a youngster, but after the injury it was even more sweet to get runs in the first two games.”
Mandhana found herself having to use crutches after damaging anterior cruciate ligaments in her knee playing for the Brisbane Heat in January. She feared she might have to miss the World Cup altogether.
“For the first 20 to 25 days I was really worried that I’d miss the World Cup because I wasn’t really doing anything. I was on crutches, and didn’t know what to do.
“But I’m really thankful to the National Cricket Academy, the BCCI and our physio, who looked after me and supported me mentally more than anything else.
“They were telling me ‘you will make the World Cup’. So that kept me going in the last five months.”
A lot of Mandhana’s game was built on playing gully cricket with a tennis ball when she was young, after her family had moved to Sangli – a Maharashtran city on the banks of the river Krishna, famed for its production of the spice tumeric. By then, her fascination and love of cricket was well established through the influence of her older brother, who she avidly copied in the nets while he was practising in Mumbai.
“I used to go with my brother to watch him practise, and after the practice I would get to bat for 20-30 balls. So that’s why I became a leftie – seeing my brother bat.
“He’s five years older than me and if you see my brother bat, we’re a carbon copy. Whatever I have learnt in cricket is through watching him bat.
“I was never taught, this is a cover drive or this is an on-drive, so that’s how I learnt, by watching him bat in the nets.
“After we left Mumbai, I didn’t play leather-ball cricket for two years. I just played gully cricket with the boys.
“India have now secured victories in 21 of their last 22 ODI games and “are genuine contenders for the title
“My mum and dad always wanted me to be a sports person, and I loved cricket, so I wanted to be a cricket player only. When I was nine I went for selection for the Under-15s just to see what the girls were like, and luckily I got selected from the start, so that’s where it all began.”
It’s a story which could yet have a fairytale ending for this 20-year-old, who has already caught the eye of former India opener Virender Sehwag, who, upon receiving a tweet suggesting that Mandhana was the female version of him, simply replied to say, “She is the first version of Smriti and is really special. Every Indian who loves cricket will be proud of her.”
The attention that the women’s team is attracting back home could yet be a game-changer for women’s cricket, not just in India, but on a global basis. A strong India, with the potential commercial support that could be awoken by a successful World Cup run, could advance the game in a way that has never been seen before.
The possible consequence of a first ever World Cup victory means Mandhana and her teammates are chasing more than an impressive piece of silverware. They want a piece of history.
“It will change the map for women’s cricket in India, I feel. Men’s cricket in India became famous after the 1983 World Cup so if we do well in this World Cup I think it will do the same as for men’s cricket. Hopefully we can lay the foundations for others to come.”