The search for India women's cricket team's head coach is not over yet. The Harmanpreet Kaur-led side has been without head coach for over six months but it does not seem to bother vice-captain Smriti Mandhana as she sees the silver lining it it.
In December 2022, Ramesh Powar was sacked. No head coach was announced for the T20 World Cup 2023 where India crashed out at semi-final stage after losing to Australia.
"The BCCI has been hunting for a long-term coach and we will have one soon," Mandhana said at the pre-match press conference on the eve of India's third ODI against Bangladesh.
"It's not a very big thing in terms of players. We want to play the best brand of cricket we can. All the coaching staff that has come in has been really helpful.
"Sometimes it's an advantage, new coaching staff comes with new tips and new positives. If I take it very positively then its a good thing," the left-handed batter added.
However, in April 2023, Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) took the decision to give long-term contracts to head coach instead of appointing them on an ad-hoc basis. So far, Amol Mazumdar is the frontrunner for the top post.
"For us as a team, it is not important what is happening around us. How we play our brand of cricket is more important. We will have to wait for the series to finish and see what happens," the opener said.
Mandhana has not been in the best of forms of late. She has got good starts but failed to convert them into big scores.
"I have been batting well in the nets and in the matches I have been getting starts. It doesn't happen very often that I am middling the ball and still not getting runs for the team but I have been working on it.
"The last match for me was pretty positive, the way I was able to get the team off to a decent start but threw my wicket away. It's more about application.. my batting is going well but application hasn't been always the way I applied," Mandhana said.
Earlier this week, Bangladesh stunned India by registered their first-ever ODI win over them. Mandhana feels that Bangladesh have improved of late and they won't take them lightly in the decider despite a comprehensive win by 108 runs in the second ODI.
"We played them in the Asia Cup last year, they have grown since then. On these sort of wickets their bowling attack is good.
"They have played a very good brand of cricket. They will be coming hard at us so we won't be taking anything lightly. The deciding factor (for us) has been batting...getting ourselves to a good score will be important. We have to be good in all 3 departments," the 27-year-old said.
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