"Much Needed Game For Other Batters": Smriti Mandhana After Win Over Nepal

Stand-in India skipper Smriti Mandhana was pleased to see the middle-order batters getting some much-needed runs under their belt against Nepal in Dambulla 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.

"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