Mature Mandhana rides the WPL storm in two contrasting seasons

Smriti Mandhana had played nearly 200 international matches before she walked out for her maiden WPL appearance in March 2023. She had ridden through the highs and lows an international sportsperson experiences, featured in T20 leagues around the world and even captained India in over a dozen T20Is.

The beast that is a franchise-based T20 league hit her in a different way, though. With the responsibility of leading a side like Royal Challengers Bangalore - which boasts of a massive fan base - also came the burden of living up to the expectations to lead the team at least into the playoffs.

Under Mandhana's captaincy, RCB started the 2023 WPL with a forgettable string of five losses before finishing second from bottom. Mandhana herself went through a wretched patch to manage just 149 runs in eight innings to average under 19 while striking at an unimpressive 111.19.

Facing that kind of pressure was a different ball-game and it changed something in her, she said, before she turned her form around this WPL to score 259 runs in the eight league games to average 32.37 while striking at 145.50 and feature among the top-five scorers after the league stage.

"I think there's still time, I'll think a lot more in deep about this when we finish the tournament," Mandhana said of her two contrasting WPL seasons after they made the knockouts on Tuesday night with a win over defending champions Mumbai Indians.

"It's too early for me to think. But I think as a player or as captain even as a person, it's really taught me a lot of things. Especially last year the way it went for me. Personally, that was a huge thing for me because like in four-five years of international cricket something of that sort hadn't happened and for me to face that was something which changed me a lot.

"I don't know what has changed but something deep inside me has definitely changed a lot last year. And of course this year, all the ups and downs, it's a nice emotion to have. I've not been a really emotional person all this while whenever I play but I'm just enjoying the emotions I'm feeling."

There wasn't much T20 cricket for Mandhana to play immediately after the WPL. She managed just 52 runs in three T20Is in Bangladesh in July and batted only twice in the Asian Games in September. It was the Hundred in between - in August - where she got the chance to focus solely on her batting without the pressures of leading the team, which was done by Anya Shrubsole for eventual champions Southern Brave. In nine innings there, Mandhana scored 238 runs while averaging nearly 30 and striking at 133.70.

Next was the WBBL in Australia, but she decided to skip that for the second year in a row to play domestic cricket in October-November instead. In the six innings she played for Maharashtra in the Women's T20 Trophy, Mandhana racked up 246 runs including a 121 off 61 against Mizoram and a half-century, to end the tournament with a strike rate of nearly 153 while averaging 49.20. She struck the third-most fours in the tournament, but they came a lot more frequently (40 fours in 161 balls) than those who hit more boundaries than her: Jemimah Rodrigues (66 fours in 351 balls) and Punam Raut (45 fours in 336 balls).

The competitive quotient of domestic matches would not have matched up to the WPL's or Hundred's, but Mandhana had begun to regain her confidence at least with the comforting factor of runs under her belt.

While speaking of RCB's one-run agonising loss against Delhi Capitals earlier this week, Mandhana gave a peek into her mentality of how she pulls herself up after heartbreaking losses or moments that pull her down.

"As I said, I'm not really an emotional person," she said. "Of course, especially being the captain, you can't really have that expression of sadness or happiness on your face, especially after that kind of a loss [against Capitals].

"Not one person in particular, but of course I have a really close group of family and friends who know I won't really say anything, but they always reach out to me or message me something that I need to hear. Maybe a good sleep makes you feel better, so eight hours of sleep and next day I was all good [after the loss].

"What I've learnt from 10 years of international cricket is every day is a new day in cricket. Whatever happens, good or bad, you go back, train hard, come back and try and be the best you can be."

With a more prolific individual run in this year's WPL, four wins from eight games for a knockout berth and a more confident side behind her, Mandhana said some of the factors to turn things around for RCB was the "amazing" work put in by their new coach Luke Williams, the "thought" that went into the team between the two WPLs and the faith the RCB management showed in her by telling her, "this is your team, make it the way you want to."

"Luke has been amazing, the way he's been handling the group and the emotions," she said. "Especially with RCB and the kind of fanbase, it's not easy in the first year to come in and to be able to do that. As Indians we're used to it but for someone coming from outside to do that I think it was an amazing job.

"The only goal RCB had this year was we don't speak about the goal," Mandhana said with a short-lived laugh. "I wouldn't say that [this has been a] really satisfying campaign still, but we had a lot of ups and downs. We started off really well and then had a little bit of dip. But that's how WPL and T20 cricket is. You'll have good days and bad days. It's really helping me as a player, as a captain, as an individual to just grow."

An in-form Mandhana is one befitting her international stature, but a wiser Mandhana is probably what RCB needed to make them more successful.