Cricket at the upcoming Birmingham Commonwealth Games 2022 will kick off on Friday 29th July with the Indian women’s team against Australia. Notably, for cricket, eight teams have been made up in two groups of four teams each, and India has been placed in Group B alongside Australia, Barbados and Pakistan. On August 7, the two medal matches are finally on the program.
Prior to his departure to Birmingham, Indian Vice-Captain Smriti Mandhana spoke at a virtual press conference on Friday where she spoke about team preparation, the atmosphere in the camp and what it means for her to compete in the Commonwealth Games.
“Really excited to be a part of the Commonwealth Games, it’s something very new for me and the whole team. We’ve never seen us go out and play a tournament that involves other sports as well. Absolutely, I looking forward to it and yes the preparation sri lanka was a good tour for us ODIs and T20Is and we also had fitness camp some girls had fitness and skills camp we worked on stuff that individuals, so yes, the preparation was really good for the Commonwealth and I hope the preparation will lead us to get a medal back,” Mandhana said while answering an DailyExpertNews question during a virtual press conference.
Speaking further about her feelings about playing in the Commonwealth Games, the left-handed batter said: “Yeah, as I said, we haven’t had the experience of playing at Commonwealth where we will aim to win a gold medal because we all imagine lifting the trophy now we have to imagine coming on the podium and get a medal I think it is something new and we are all very excited it will be a new experience for us , we will enjoy and do our best.”
“All the girls are very excited, we all know the feeling because we’ve seen Commonwealth Games and Olympics before. When the Indian flag goes higher, we hear the national anthem and everyone knows that feeling. We’re definitely going for a gold medal, I don’t think that we are only going for a podium place because when that flag goes up the national anthem is playing and that’s the best feeling we got goosebumps when Neeraj Chopra won gold in the Olympics we have a chance to be there and do that at the Commonwealth Games. We know the groups have been decided a long time ago and we have our plans for Australia, Barbados and Pakistan.”
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When asked if there’s a particular athlete she’s looking forward to at The Games Village, Mandhana said: “We’re not sure, like I said, it’s something very new and I don’t know how we’re going to go about it. I don’t know. not how much we will be able to deal with the athletes but i have nothing in particular i would just like to have conversations with different athletes knowing what kind of training they are doing we kinda did that when we have did a show during the lockdown, it was great and we got a lot of takeaways.”
Team India squad: Harmanpreet Kaur (C), Smriti Mandhana (VC), Shafali Verma, S. Meghana, Taniyaa Sapna Bhatia (World Cup), Yastika Bhatia (World Cup), Deepti Sharma, Rajeshwari Gayakwad, Pooja Vastrakar, Meghna Singh, Renuka Thakur , Jemimah Rodrigues, Radha Yadav, Harleen Deol, Sneh Rana.
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