RCB head coach Luke Williams on Friday said that captain Smriti Mandhana is ready to lead from the front in their first match of the Women’s Premier Leagur league at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium here on Saturday.
“It’s been great to spend some time with Smriti over the last ten days. She is practising really well as she is in a really confident and happy space with her cricket and the leadership. So, Smriti is really excited about the season ahead,” Williams said while addressing a press conference ahead of RCB’s first match in Season 2 of WPL 2024.
“Obviously there’s responsibility with captaining and opening the batting, but she’s got plenty of support from the team with lots of experienced senior players to help her and trying to really separate the two roles.” He said
Obviously, the captaincy is one part of it, but then at other times, it’s when she’s out there batting it is Smriti Mandhana the batter and trying to be the best batter for RCB she can be. Because if she’s able to do that, we know how much impact that she can provide for our team.”
He stated, “We’ve had a really productive 10-day camp leading into the WPL. It was carefully planned and constructed both from a cricketing point of view, but also a culture and team point of view in terms of how we set that up. So, there’s certainly been a combination of different things, whether that’s been nets and fielding and skills training combined with some match simulations where players individually and as a team, getting to understand and learn and practise the particular roles that we think players will face in the tournament.
“We’re really looking forward to our first match. We’ve got five games at home and we know we’re going to have a really passionate and loyal fan base behind us, so we’re really excited. We really focus on playing an exciting brand of cricket in front of the fans.”