Smriti Mandhana attended the Amazon Smbhav Summit 2025 in New Delhi. It was her first major public appearance after calling off her wedding to Palash Muchhal.
The Team India vice-captain spoke about her long career, focus and how cricket has helped her deal with life’s challenges. She spoke at the event as one of the major sports icons.
Smriti Mandhana shared the stage with World Cup captain Harmanpreet Kaur and Player of the Tournament in ICC Women’s ODI World Cup 2025 Deepti Sharma.The event aims to inspire MSMEs with lessons from the world of sports.
“I don’t think I love anything more than cricket. Wearing that Indian jersey is the motivation that drives us. You leave all your problems aside and the very thought helps you focus on life,” Mandhana said at the event.
“As a child, the batting craze was always there. No one understood it, but in my heart I always wanted to be called the world champion,” she said.
“I have always been a very simple person. I don’t complicate my life by thinking too much. And one thing I believe is if you put a lot of work behind the scenes, because what happens on the ground, everyone looks at it and judges based on that, but what I or the team judges is the work we put in behind the scenes,” added Mandhana.
“I’m really proud to do this job day in and day out, whether I feel good or bad about things, whatever it is, I think when you put the work down and you go to bat, you’re just very sure of what’s going to happen,” she added.
She also mentioned that the work ethic has changed in Team India in the last two years. The cricket ace credits it for winning the World Cup.
“You could see a different shift in everybody. They all had a game plan of what they wanted their next two years to look like and that’s why we got the results,” she added.
Smriti Mandhana’s Wedding: What Happened?
Smriti Mandhan’s wedding was first postponed after her father reportedly suffered a heart-related medical emergency. Palash Muchhal was also briefly hospitalized.
Soon after, online rumors about Palash cheating on Smriti started doing the rounds. Palash and his family denied any infidelity and warned of legal action.
Fans then noticed that Smriti had deleted the marriage proposal posts. Yet Palash’s family continued to insist that the wedding would take place after Smriti’s father recovered.
Later, Smriti confirmed that the wedding was called off. She asked for privacy to focus on cricket.
Palash later said that he also “decided to move on”. After that, they both unfollowed each other on Instagram.
