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The same coaches would have watched Mandhana’s bravery in India’s CWG 2022 semi-final against England with delight.
Take this six off Issey Wong in the third over for example. Pulling in front of square to a short ball, the length of which she picked up in an instant. Although the boundaries at Edgbaston were greatly increased, the shot would go six places at most.
This was another example of the transformation Mandhana had undergone. She has tried to consciously work on her power hitting since becoming a WBBL regular. A debut season for the Brisbane Heat in 2016-17, in which she managed all 89 runs in 10 innings, proved impressive.
On bouncy surfaces, Mandhana realized she had to find new ways to score rather than just trust her drives. She started working hard on her pull up. Her height would allow her to get on top of the rebound most times; it was just a matter of having control of the shot without losing balance. Today, Mandhana has one of the best knocks in women’s cricket.
And as with most good players, she expanded her game in many directions. She often took out the conventional swing, and on Saturday, for perhaps the first time in a big game, you saw her play a scoop and a delicate paddle.
You might ask why a player of her caliber should try to be inventive behind the stumps when she has all the shots in front of her. Well, according to her captain Harmanpreet Kaur, it was Mandhana’s way of pushing boundaries and trying to “think outside the box” for the team’s benefit.
Mandhana’s 23-ball half-century against England speaks of her intent to dominate from the start. Her confidence in the first over, against Catherine Brunt, set a marker. England might have expected Shafali Verma to take the attack to them. Instead, Mandhana decided this was her stage to set on fire with some breathtaking shots – none played in anger.
This meant that Shafali quickly stepped into a supporting role, flipping the script on several of his previous partnerships with Mandhana.
Rodriguez’s career has seen a number of bumps since she broke through as a prodigiously talented 18-year-old. When he was fit, there were no vacancies in the midfield. And when she went through a long streak of poor results, she admitted she was lost.
When the pandemic hit and derailed the cricket calendar, Rodriguez was a constant presence on the internet with his hit YouTube show alongside Mandhana. The pair interviewed several sports personalities and added their own touch of humor and color to the long hours of lockdown.
During one such conversation with Rohit Sharma, Rodriguez casually broached the subject of consistency. Rohit talks about his struggle to cope with expectations in the first 5-6 years of his career and how he overcame it by building a ‘shield’ around himself and relying on family and friends to take him away from the game.
The current version of Rodriguez is defined by her awareness and clarity of thought, which she showed just this past week at the Commonwealth Games. In a must-win match against Barbados, she anchored India’s innings with an unbeaten half-century. Against England, with the stakes even higher, she produced a masterclass in stroke rotation to make an unbeaten 31-ball 44. At frequent moments throughout her innings, she stepped to the leg side to hit inside out and get access to the cover region, both off spin and medium pace.
Rodriguez knows she’s not a power hitter, but she’s aware of the damage she can do, relying on her old-school virtues of timing and hand-eye coordination, which she credits to her hockey addiction.
India may have dreamed of at least 180 when they were 64 for no loss after the powerplay, but those hopes quickly hit a snag. Rodriguez was in the middle of a stage where the innings needed calm. She provided that, and when the time came to begin, she did so by trusting her own methods. That proved to be the difference between India finishing on 145 and making 164.
The contribution of Mandhana and Rodrigues, good friends and teammates in the West Zone long before they played for India, gave a glimpse of a potential shift in India’s overall T20 game away from conservatism and towards a more forward-looking approach.
This approach carried them into the gold medal game; if Mandhana and Rodrigues can perform in this match on Sunday, they might just open a new chapter in Indian women’s cricket.
Shashank Kishore is a senior sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo
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