We weren’t up to par: Mandhana comments on RCB’s loss against MI
Smriti Mandhana, the captain of Royal Challengers Bangalore, acknowledged on Monday that their performance against Mumbai Indians in the WPL match was “below standard” after back-to-back losses but predicted a great rebound.
RCB, who chose to bat first, were all out for 155 runs, and MI successfully chased down the mark with up to 34 balls remaining.
“We would have loved to put up a better performance. We were below par. Will come back harder. There were two-three batters getting 20-30 runs, a few batters including me couldn’t put up a good score,” Mandhana said at the post-match presentation.
“We will sit and talk and try to come up with a better performance. We had six-seven good bowlers. As batters we need to put up a good total on board.
“It’s a pretty short tournament, we can’t dwell on it. In franchise cricket, even after two losses we can turn it around quickly.” Mandhana was, however, happy with Kanika Ahuja (22) and Shriyanka Patil’s (23) performance with the bat, having come at number seven and eight in the batting order.
“Lots of positives in the form of Kanika and Shriyanka’s batting after the top order collapse, really happy with the way they batted,” she said.
As RCB has now dropped two straight games, Mumbai Indians has now won two straight games.
“I think batting was the same, the bowling we did was better in the first game (against Gujarat Giants) than today. We still did well to keep them to small score.
“We just wanted to back ourselves and chase. Everyone in the team is just happy to do it their way and they’re enjoying themselves,” Harmanpreet said.
