WPL was the one piece that was missing: Smriti Mandhana

At 26, Mandhana has already represented India in 112 WT20Is, 77 WODIs and four WTest matches. The left-hander is feared by opponents across the world at the top of the order and has already amassed 2,651 T20I runs at a strike rate of 123.

Needless to say, she will be amongst the most sought-after players when the auction for the Women's Premier League (WPL) takes place in Mumbai on February 13. She is commanding a base price of Rs 50 lakh along with her India teammates Harmanpreet Kaur, Deepti Sharma and Shafali Verma.

Mandhana, the ICC Women's Cricketer of the Year 2022 winner, shared her views on the inaugural season of WPL, how it will elevate women's cricket in India and help her take her cricketing journey to the next level.

"I'm really excited for the first-ever Women's Premier League. We have been waiting for this for a really long time. I think the build-up has been amazing and I'm really excited at how things have turned out," said Smriti Mandhana while speaking on JioCinema.

She felt that the WPL was the one piece that was missing and believed that it will have a tremendous impact on the growth of cricket globally. "It's going to be massive in terms of growing bench strength for the Indian team and I don't think only in India, globally it's going to be massive for women's cricket.

"IPL is a brand, and similarly WPL will definitely boost women's cricket globally. We have seen what Women's Big Bash (played in Australia) has done for players from different countries. WPL will do the same," she insisted.

In February 2019, Mandhana scored the fastest fifty for India in Women's T20Is off only 24 balls against New Zealand. She also became the youngest T20I captain for India when she led the team against England in the first T20I in Guwahati as Harmanpreet Kaur was ruled out due to an injury.

Mandhana explained how the forthcoming league will expose her to a new environment and how she will mentally and physically progress as a cricketer. "We have been part of a lot of franchise cricket in the last 4-5 years and it has always helped us understand our game and try to get used to the new environment in which we actually play in different teams.

"WPL is also going to help us understand this is how I have to be in a new environment, or this is how the team needs to perform. So I am sure that sort of experience to build a women's PL team will be a really exciting thing and will help me a lot grow as a player and be more mature," said Mandhana. (ANI)