Follow UsEngland Women vs India Women, 1st T20I
Shafali Verma and Smriti Mandhana have given India yet another great start with the score being 77/1 when Verma holes out to Sophie Ecclestone in the ninth over. With the run-rate being above nine at that point, the Indian women could have afforded a few quiet overs. The precedent also said that India do slow down a bit after the powerplay.
However, that didn’t happen. Harleen Deol, thought of as a conventional batter, especially when she’s starting out, came out at number three and smashed four 4s in her first seven deliveries. By the 11th over, the score was 110/1.
India are going at 10 runs/over. Instead of slowing like most T20 teams do, they sped up. The players in the team were largely the same. However, this wasn’t the same Indian T20I team we had come to know.
Fast forward to the second T20I in Bristol
India are in serious trouble batting first, and things couldn’t be more different from the first game as the scorecard read 31/3 in 5.1 overs. Mandhana, Verma and skipper Harmanpreet Kaur were all back in the dugout. Jemimah Rodrigues was batting along with Amanjot Kaur, a bowling all-rounder was promoted ahead of Richa Ghosh.
They played out the sixth and seventh overs quietly. Anyways, neither of them is a big hitter of the ball. Rodrigues can generate a lot of pace on her shots, but that’s only through running down the pitch or finding crafty angles for her shots. Amanjot, meanwhile, had newfound batting confidence after finishing a game for the Mumbai Indians in the Women’s Premier League (WPL).
Both of them ended up having a 93-run partnership in just 55 deliveries. While Rodrigues did Rodrigues things, Amanjot played the gaps perfectly in the field. They still batted at a run-rate of 10 in that partnership while hitting just one six in that partnership. Moreover, the majority of the fours came through just smart batting, not brute hitting, as both the batters played to their strengths.
However, the best thing about that partnership was that they played just 11 dot balls throughout those 55 deliveries. There was a 23-ball period where England bowlers weren’t able to bowl a single dot ball. They ran twos from the edge of the 25-metre circle. They scampered for singles like maniacs. And ultimately, in their own way, helped India reach 181/4 and win a game despite being three down in the powerplay.
Was it different, yes! But was it effective? Definitely!
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These two anecdotes from the ongoing England-India T20I series are just a figment that the Indian women’s team’s batting in T20 cricket has changed. And the reason behind it is very clear, despite the methods being individualistic — it is the intent to keep scoring that’s finally shining through. The turning point happens to be the 2024 T20 World Cup in the UAE, where India exited with a subpar performance.
Between the 2023 T20 World Cup and the 2024 one, the Indian batter with the best strike rate was Verma. However, only Richa Ghosh and her batted at a strike rate north of 140 in that period. The remaining others failed to score boundaries at regular intervals. That’s why it wasn’t a surprise when India succumbed to run-scoring pressure on multiple occasions in this period.
Post 2024 T20 World Cup, four of the top five batters in the batting lineup are striking at above 140, with Rodrigues striking at 139 as well. However, the most noticeable difference seen here is in boundary% and frequency for each of these batters, as they have gone up drastically, suggesting a remarkable uptick in batting intent.
In fact, even if you compare the Indian batting with worldwide trends in the same period (min 500 runs), there are three Indian batters at the higher end of the spectrum. Moreover, in a list that’s full of Australian batters, it shows that the batting transformation is well and truly under as batters like Harmanpreet and Verma weren’t able to make a space for themselves on this scatter plot due to the cutoff of 500 runs as they don’t play as many franchise or domestic T20 games.
Suppose you look minutely at this change in the Indian batting. In that case, you’ll find that it’s the Indian opening pair of Mandhana and Verma who have not done the bulk scoring, but have also done it at a rapid pace, with only the Australian batting pair doing better than them. The same intent and process was visible in the fourth T20I against England recently, where Indian openers polished off the majority of the 127 run chase as India won their first ever T20I series in England.
Whatever the method of the individuals behind it, India’s T20 batting transformation is well and truly underway
In an exclusive interview with Cricket.com back during the 2025 WPL, Mumbai Indians batting coach Devieka Palshikar told how she has been working with the Indian players like Amanjot, G Kamalini and Sajana during pre-season camps to improve their power hitting. She also prepared them for crunch situations where they deliver on demand.
Amanjot did exactly that in the second T20I against England, where she was also the Player of the match.
She’s just one player; the WPL and the entire ecosystem around it have had a huge role to play in this newfound batting intent amongst the Indian batters. With scores north of 180 being made and breached regularly in the WPL, gone are the days when bulk scoring got you a guaranteed place in the Indian side. Now, your strike rate is as important, if not more, and the upskilling of players like Harleen and Amanjot is a testament to that.
Not only has this reduced the scoring pressure on the likes of Mandhana and Harmanpreet, but it will also ensure that this intent will seep into the ODI format as well as the core of the Indian T20I side plays the ODIs as well.
With the ODI World Cup starting in India in a few months' time, this transformation couldn’t have come at a better time. The England T20I series win is a great proof of concept.