{"id":157680,"date":"2026-04-21T16:33:24","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T22:03:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/?p=157680"},"modified":"2026-04-21T16:33:24","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T22:03:24","slug":"ind-w-vs-sa-w-3rd-t20i-focus-on-mandhana-deepti-as-india-tries-to-stay-afloat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/?p=157680","title":{"rendered":"IND-W vs SA-W, 3rd T20I: Focus on Mandhana, Deepti as India tries to stay afloat"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

Vice-captain Smriti Mandhana and senior all-rounder Deepti Sharma would like to bring out their \u2018A\u2019 games as the Indian women\u2019s team tries to pull all its stops to get back to winning ways against South Africa in the third T20 International on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

The Proteas women lead the five-match series 2-0 and would like to complete the series win in the third match at the Bull Ring.<\/p>\n

Mandhana, easily team\u2019s most impactful batter, scored 13 and 12 in the first two games. India put up an underwhelming show with totals of 157 and 147 which the home team surpassed without breaking much sweat.<\/p>\n

As far as Deepti is concerned, her form has been more worrisome. She was demoted to No. 9 in the first game where she remained not out on one run and was dismissed for identical score in the second game where she was sent up the order at No. 6. In both games, she went wicketless.<\/p>\n

ALSO READ | Tough time, but we\u2019ll stay together: Harmanpreet Kaur after second successive T20I defeat<\/a><\/b><\/p>\n

The Indian batting is very much dependent on Mandhana\u2019s free-flowing starts and the stylish southpaw would like to make amends for the poor returns in the first two games. Indian skipper Harmanpreet Kaur and Jemimah Rodrigues did get some runs in the first match but came a cropper in the second outing.<\/p>\n

With T20 World Cup in England only a couple of months away, Harmanpreet & Co. would like to get its mojo back and notch up a few victories which is essential to boost the morale of the team.<\/p>\n

What has hurt India more is the fact that there has been no power-hitting at the back-end of the innings leading to below-par totals in both games.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you see both the games in 12 overs or so, we were at 100 and then after that we couldn\u2019t finish the way we wanted them to but that always happens in cricket,\u201d bowling coach Aavishkar Salvi said at the pre-match press conference.<\/p>\n

On Deepti\u2019s form, Salvi defended the veteran all-rounder, who was a star performer during India\u2019s ODI World Cup triumph.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne or two games or three games doesn\u2019t justify the kind of talent she (Deepti) is, the kind of performances she has put in over the years. She is not at her best as of now but she has gone back to the drawing board, discussing all her game plans, what she wants to use during the games.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s only a matter of a few instances where probably she just strikes and she comes back shining,\u201d Salvi backed her with all intent.<\/p>\n

For the Proteas, skipper Laura Wolvaardt has once again proved to be a thorn in the flesh for India with back-to-back half-centuries (51 and 54).<\/p>\n

The Indian attack has also looked rudderless during PowerPlay and Salvi admitted that they are currently carrying out a trial and error as to which bowlers would work during the global event.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are actually giving opportunities to all the bowlers to operate into that segment so that we don\u2019t rely only on a few bowlers coming into the main event (T20 World Cup).<\/p>\n

\u201cBut obviously, yes, we would like to pick wickets, we would like to strike early, we would like to use the power play from the bowling point of view so that we create that impact initially into the game,\u201d Salvi added.<\/p>\n

Published on Apr 21, 2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


\n
Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Vice-captain Smriti Mandhana and senior all-rounder Deepti Sharma would like to bring out their \u2018A\u2019 games as the Indian women\u2019s team tries to pull all its stops to get back to winning ways against South Africa in the third T20 International on Wednesday. The Proteas women lead the five-match series 2-0 and would like to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":157681,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-157680","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/IMG_GettyImages-22627685_2_1_O1FKFGL8.jpg","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgnRh4-F1e","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157680","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=157680"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157680\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/157681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=157680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=157680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newslink360.space\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=157680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}