Smriti Mandhana too a silent partner for chatty Grace Harris in the WPL?
ESPNcricinfo staff
19-Jan-2026
Smriti Mandhana: bats with quiet aggression • BCCI
What's it like to bat with Smriti Mandhana? Pretty peaceful unless you're the one who likes to jabber on during a partnership.
Australian allrounder Grace Harris, playing her first season with Royal Challengers Bengaluru in the 2026 WPL after three years at UP Warriorz, found how different she is from Mandhana when the two went out to open for RCB. On the No Balls podcast, she and England fast bowler Kate Cross chatted about playing with Mandhana.
"If Smriti sneezes and you say, bless you, that's about as outgoing as she gets, right," Harris joked "Like, that's a conversation with her. She's one of the quietest, introverted people. [As we got ready to bat], she shook my hand. She's like, how you going, I'm like, yeah, good. And that was it.
"[Out in the middle], I was like, oh, shapes, girl, like, how good is this batting out here and whatnot? And she's like: you talk like this all the time? I was like: I do!"
Cross recalled training with Mandhana for RCB in 2024. "The closest I've ever got to batting with Smriti was in a training session in 2024. We did like a game-play situation. She was captain in the fielding team, so she batted later down in the order.
"I was batting with her and I was like, 'Oh, I could get used to this, Smriti. I said, but you're either going to have to bat nine or I'm going to have to bat two. Which one do you want?' She was like, 'I think I'll stick with one and you can have two. It was good fun, though."