Trailblazers captain Smriti Mandhana has called for improved fielding when they will face the two-time defending champions Supernovas in the final of the Jio Women’s IPL T20 Challenge on Monday, November 9 at the Sharjah Cricket Stadium.
Ahead of the Women's T20 Challenge final, Mandhana on Sunday (November 8) said Trailblazers must improve their fielding and show seriousness in the powerplay while batting if they want to win maiden title in the three-team tournament in the UAE.
Trailblazers and current champions Supernovas-led by Harmanpreet Kaur will clash for the Women's T20 Challenge title on Monday in Sharjah and Mandhana said they must have a strong plan against Chamari Athapaththu to stop them from winning the back-to-back third title.
Mandhana said during a virtual press conference, “I think keeping the last game in mind, we need to work on our fielding, we gave 15-20 runs extra in our last match against Supernovas, our bowling plans to Athapaththu can get better, I think we leaked a few runs extra in the powerplay, we have to go back and work on our plans in order to stop Athapaththu in the powerplay.”
In their Saturday's meeting, Chamari Athapaththu had scored 67 off 48 deliveries, taking 29 off 19 deliveries in the powerplay phase to power Supernovas to a 2-run win over the 2018 runners-up Trailblazers.
However, despite the loss, Mandhana was proud of the way her team has played in the 2020 edition of the Women's T20 Challenge and even in their last game against Supernovas. Trailblazers made it to the finals after defeated Velocity by a very big margin in the round-robin stage.
Mandhana said of the positives from the game against Supernovas: “I think in both the innings of our last match, we came back strongly, we did well in restricting Supernovas in the last ten overs, in our batting as well we came back after the 13-14th over, it shows how all the players are keen to win the matches. It was good to see and it is a big positive sign for us. We did well to win our first match by a huge margin, nevertheless, we have tomorrow to come back stronger and win the tournament.”
She signed off, “It has been an amazing experience to play Women's T20 Challenge, we all were looking to play some cricket, this tournament has always been exciting, all the three matches will give a lot of experience, tomorrow if we win on the winning note, it will make the experience even better.”
(With ANI Inputs)
