Smriti Mandhana Ruled Out Of ODI Series Against South Africa

Ahead of the ODI series against South Africa, the India Women Cricket Team suffered major jolt as they lost Smriti Mandhana services for the entire ODI series following an injury during the training session. If the reports are to be believed, she fractured her toe finger, a couple of days ago.

Pooja Vastrakar to replace Smriti Mandhana – Reports

The Board of Control for Cricket in India hasn’t named any replacement for the stylish southpaw. However, from the close sources, it is learnt from the reports of SportStar that Pooja Vastrakar set to get the nod in the Mithali Raj-led side for the upcoming series.

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Mandhana, who hadn’t been in the best nick during the T20I series against the Proteas, would have hoped to recover her form in the 50-over contests. While most of the side remains the same, the two most notable inclusions are Mithali Raj and Jhulan Goswami. The duo would like to make the most of their experience.

Mandhana, the opener of the women’s team, has been in brilliant ODI form since the beginning of last year. She scored 1018 runs in 18 matches at a stunning average of 67.86, strike-rate of 90.97. And also, she bagged two centuries and 10 half-centuries.

India won the previous Twenty20 International series 3-1 that took place in Surat. However, Mandhana was uncharacteristically out for a string of low scores in the shorter format. Recently,  she had a good season in the KIA Super League in England.

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Now, the young Jemimah Rodrigues, Veda Krishnamurthy, Taniya Bhatia and Harmanpreet Kaur will have a lot more onus in helping their captain especially with Smriti Mandhana out of action.