Harmanpreet Kaur, Smriti Mandhana did not see eye to eye on captaincy: Report

It was not clear that Smriti Mandhana would receive the honor of captaining the Indian women’s cricket team following Harmanpreet Kaur’s resignation from the post. But is this a case of the altitude coming too late in the day for the 30-year-old left-hander, who is now the best batsman in the country by a wide margin?

The call for Harmanpreet, who led India for the first time in 2016, to step down as captain across formats was taken after a review meeting with the BCCI. The 37-year-old native of Moga ended her breakthrough leadership in the post on a high note, he had just led India to its second gold of the Asian Games in Japan.

Mandhana was the obvious choice to take up the mantle from Harmanpreet. After making his debut in 2013, the classy opener became among the leading batsmen in the game, scoring more than 10,000 runs across formats.

Mandhana has always been head and shoulders above others when it comes to skills and now she has further elevated her craft by adding power to her all-round game. It was no secret that she had run out of patience with the selectors who opted to maintain the status quo as captain even after India ended their ICC trophy drought at home last year by winning the ODI World Cup.

In a recent interview, she expressed her readiness to lead India and after the Asian Games gold, she went on to say that India should strive to win bigger tournaments. In the 50-over period, India made an early exit from the T20 World Cups, raising questions about leadership starting with the shortest format.

But the selectors did not ring the cat. But at an assessment meeting in Guwahati chaired by BCCI secretary Devajit Saikia, Harmanpreet was made clear that a changing of the guard was inevitable. She finally decided to take matters into her own hands.

The captaincy also became a sticking point between Harmanpreet and Mandhana, who got along quite well.

“Now they haven’t seen eye to eye for a while and that’s led to some evident unease in the dressing room,” a team source said.

After India crashed out of the T20 World Cup in Great Britain earlier this year, legend Mithali Raj told PTI that the selectors should have promoted Mandhan two or three years ago while questioning Harmanpreet’s form and fitness.

“I thought she would get the captaincy in the ODI format two to three years ago. She can still be the ODI and Test captain and someone younger like Shafali (Verma) could be given the T20 captaincy,” Mithali said.

With women’s cricket not facing the same scrutiny as the men’s team, this is not the first time selectors have botched a management transition.

Even as Harmanpreet took over the ODI captaincy from Mithali after the 2022 World Cup, relations between the two veterans were at an all-time low.

This has caused factionalism in the team and now that Harmanpreet wants to continue as a player for another two or three years, it remains to be seen if she and Mandhana can shed that burden for the team cause.

While India dominated the recent Asia Cup and Asian Games, Harmanpreet was not at her best. Being clean hitters, expectations will surely rise going forward and she will need to raise her game significantly to stay in contention.

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