This experience was amazing: Smriti Mandhana after guiding Trailblazers to maiden Women’s T20 Challenge title

Smriti Mandhana termed Trailblazers wins as an ‘amazing experience’ after her team beat Supernovas to win the Women’s T0 Challenge for the maiden time.

Defending a modest total of 118, Trailblazers restricted Supernovas to 102/7 to win the final by 16 runs.

“The first one-two months of the lockdown was good to spend time with the family. But I think in the last three-four months we got time to go out and start hitting some balls. It was a good time for all of us to go back and work on ourselves which we don’t get usually,” Smriti said.

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“I just told the girls that these are the last 20 overs of the tournament. Because of the covid situation, we don’t know when we’ll come out next, so we wanted to give it our all. This experience was amazing to go out in the nets with the overseas players and our youngsters.

“It was nice to exchange knowledge and cultures to see how cricket is played in their countries. It was nice for the youngsters to be able to bowl to players like Dottin before being selected into the national side,” she added.

Losing captain Harmanpreet Kaur said that her team couldn’t build partnerships and that rued her side from winning the title for the third time.

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“It wasn’t that tough a total to chase but we just didn’t get partnerships. We needed two good partnerships, but we didn’t,” she said.

“We couldn’t do it this time but it is part of the game and we’ll take it as a learning,” she added.

Harmanpreet made a fighting 30 off 36 balls, but picked an injury during the chase.

“The injury isn’t that bad. It was really tough for me, while fielding only I got hurt but you have got to be there for the team. I tried my best but couldn’t win it for the team,” she said.

Radha Yadav took a five-wicket haul and eight in the series, to win the Player of the series award.

“It feels great to pick a fifer but isn’t nice to not be on the winning side. I worked very hard on my bowling in the lockdown, and I think it shows. I was playing consistently even in the lockdown and I was in touch, so it didn’t feel like I was coming back after a long time,” said Radha.