'India Banking On Coach Amol Muzumdar's Experience': Smriti Mandhana Ahead Of England Test

With the Indian women's team lacking enough red-ball exposure, vice-captain Smriti Mandhana said her young teammates are picking the brains of new head coach Amol Muzumdar to get into red-ball mindset ahead of the one-off Test against England. Two years ago, India had played a couple of Tests in England and Australia in June and September with both the four-day games ending in draws. In comparison, England have had a more recent experience of playing red-ball cricket as their last game was against Australia in the Women's Ashes in June this year.

Mandhana, who herself has played just four Tests in a decade-long career, feels the presence of Muzumdar, a former domestic player and captain, will be crucial as they prepare for the four-day game starting here on Thursday.

"We have an experienced coach in Amol sir. He has played so much of Ranji Trophy cricket and is used to playing a lot of four-day (cricket)," Mandhana told the media here ahead of India's training session.

"More than two or three of us, he has more experience of red-ball cricket. I can see a lot of girls approaching him and asking how his mindset was," she added.

Even though the Indians were away from top-flight red-ball cricket for the past 24 months, they have been training with the red ball under Muzumdar, who was appointed as head coach in October this year.

The team had a training camp in Bengaluru and also took part in an intra-squad match for four days.

"We did have one practice match, all the girls were a part of it. I was not able to play because of a little bit of physical issue but we had a good match in Bangalore for four days, India A versus India A, that was a good prep to get the girls into the habit of playing red-ball cricket," Mandhana