Smriti Mandhana

Arguably one of the best players in the world, Smriti Mandhana is the second Indian women’s cricketer to feature in a foreign T20 league. An attacking left-handed opening batter, Mandhana has grown as a cricketer ever since her India debut in 2013.

At just 11 years old, Mandhana was fast-tracked to the Maharashtra Under-19 side. Four years later, she was promoted to the senior team and announced her arrival with a stunning 155 on debut against a good Saurashtra bowling attack.

Her breakthrough came in 2013, when she became the first Indian woman to achieve a double-ton, scoring an unbeaten 224 off just 150 balls in a West Zone Under-19 tournament.

Smriti Mandhana T20I Career

On April 5, 2013, a 16-year-old Smriti Mandhana made her international debut in a T20I against Bangladesh, scoring a quickfire 39 to guide India home.

In February 2019, the left-handed batter smashed the fastest fifty for India in a T20I off just 24 deliveries.

The setting was Birmingham, and for the first time ever, women’s cricket was part of the Commonwealth Games. Under the pressure of history and high expectations, Mandhana rose with quiet flair. Her unbeaten 63 in the semifinal against England wasn’t just a match-winning effort; it was a moment that reflected her growth as a player who now thrived on the big stage. 

India went on to clinch the silver medal, and Mandhana’s contributions throughout the campaign had her right at the centre of it all.

Smriti Mandhana ODI Career

Smriti Mandhana made her ODI debut for India on April 10, 2013, against Bangladesh at the Sardar Patel Stadium in Ahmedabad. She was just 16 years old at the time and scored 25 runs off 35 balls in her first outing.

In the second ODI of India’s tour of Australia, Smriti scored her maiden international century (102), but in a losing cause.

Despite suffering a serious knee injury in the WBBL 2016, Mandhana was included in the Indian squad for the 2017 Women’s World Cup. She started the tournament with a bang, scoring 90 runs against England, and followed it up with her second century in ODI cricket against the Windies. India reached the finals of the tournament, but eventually lost to England.

But it was her form in international cricket that turned 2024 into a record-smashing saga.

Mandhana entered 2025 with the same quiet hunger that had always set her apart. She was one of the mainstays of the Indian line-up as they clinched their maiden World Cup at home. 

Smriti Mandhana Test Career

Smriti Mandhana made her much-awaited Test debut against England on August 13, 2014, and in the second innings of her debut match, she slammed her maiden Test fifty as the Indian team defeated England in their own backyard.

If 2020 was the year Mandhana honed her rhythm amid global disruptions, then 2021 was when she turned the volume up, commanding the world stage with elegance, grit, and weighty willow. 

The early signs came in patches, but by October, she stitched together a masterpiece that had long eluded Indian women’s cricket: a Test century on Australian soil. Under grey skies in Carrara, she played an innings that felt like silk against sandpaper, fluent, firm, and defiant. 

Smriti Mandhana Franchise Career

In 2016, Smriti Mandhana signed up for the Brisbane Heat and, alongside Harmanpreet Kaur, became one of the first two Indians to sign up for the league. She scored 89 runs in 12 innings and was ruled out of the tournament after a knee injury she suffered during the tournament.

The opener was part of the Western Storm squad for the 2018 Kia Women’s T20 Super League tournament. In a match against Lancashire, Mandhana blasted a 60-ball hundred and finished her innings on 102, and was the top scorer at the end of the tournament.

The launch of the Women’s Premier League (WPL) signalled a seismic shift in women’s cricket, and it was Mandhana who found herself at the centre of it all. When the auction hammer fell, the numbers told a story: INR 3.4 crore, the highest bid of the day, and the highest ever in women’s franchise cricket. 

Royal Challengers Bangalore didn’t just sign a batter; they invested in a leader, a brand, a symbol of where the women’s game was headed.

After a quiet start in the WPL’s debut season, she returned as captain of Royal Challengers Bangalore, this time with steel behind her smile. RCB lifted their maiden WPL trophy, and fittingly, it was Smriti Mandhana who led from the front, not just tactically, but with the bat. She finished as the second-highest run-scorer of the tournament, anchoring crucial games and driving the momentum when it mattered most.

Under Smriti’s captaincy, in 2026, RCB secured their second title by successfully chasing down a massive target of 204 runs against the Delhi Capitals in the final at Vadodara, resulting in a thrilling 6-wicket victory.

Smriti Mandhana Awards and Accolades

For her scintillating performances in the ODI format, where Mandhana averaged nearly 66.90, she was adjudged the ICC Women’s Cricketer of the Year for 2018, as well as the ICC ODI Player of the Year.

The accolades came swiftly, but not unexpectedly. The ICC crowned her the Rachael Heyhoe Flint Award winner for 2021, naming her the ICC Women’s Cricketer of the Year, a reward for her brilliance across formats. Her versatility wasn’t just in her strokeplay but in her temperament, whether negotiating Ellyse Perry under lights or threading gaps in the Caribbean sun.

The accolades, naturally, followed. She was named the ICC Women’s ODI Cricketer of the Year, a crown earned not just through numbers but consistency under pressure. And in early 2025, Wisden, cricket’s oldest and most revered voice, honoured her as the Leading Cricketer in the World, a rare and historic recognition that placed her in the highest tier of the sport’s greats.

Smriti Mandhana is the present and the future of this Indian team. A great strokeplayer who loves to take on the bowling attack, Mandhana is currently at the peak of her career, and the Indian team management will hope she continues to perform at the highest level for the nation.

(As of June 2026)