Smriti Mandhana the lone Indian in the Women’s Team of the Year 2016: “This is the first time that the ICC has named a Women”s Team of the Year. Congratulations to Stafanie Taylor (West Indies) and the rest of her team on their selection. The quality and depth of the women”s game continues to grow year by year, with a number of outstanding performances during the voting period. The selectors must have had an exceptionally difficult task in settling on the final 12 players,” the ICC chief executive David Richardson told Firstpost.
The lone Indian to find a place in the prestigious team is the young, 20-year old, Smriti Srinivas Mandhana.
The team in batting order is :
Suzie Bates (New Zealand), Rachel Priest (New Zealand) (wk), Smriti Mandhana (India), Stafanie Taylor (West Indies) (capt), Meg Lanning (Australia), Ellyse Perry (Australia), Heather Knight (England), Deandra Dottin (West Indies), Sune Luus (South Africa), Anya Shrubsole (England), Leigh Kasperek (New Zealand), Kim Garth (12th) (Ireland)
The youngster grabbed headlines when she scored 157 runs in three ODI games, including a maiden century, against Australia when India had travelled Down Under.
This Women’s Team is a sort of honouring the top performers in a period of 12 months since September, 2015.
The squad was selected by a panel consisting of Clare Conoor (Chairman), Mel Jones and Shubhangi Kulkarni.
Earlier this year, Mandhana became the second Indian player to be signed for the team Brisbane Heats in the Women’s Big Bash League (T20 format tournament) in Australia. Harmanpreet Kaur was the first Indian to be signed for Sydney Thunders.
Smriti has represented India in 23 ODIs and has accumulated 701 runs at an average of 30.47 with 102 as per personal best. She also has 5 half-centuries apart from her maiden century (102 runs off 109 balls).
Having made her T20I debut against Bangladesh on 5 April, 2013 at Vadodara, Smriti has featured in 27 games and has amassed 424 runs at an average of 17.66 with 54 runs as her individual best. She also has a half-century to her credit.
She is currently doing duty for Brisbane Heats in WBBL.
