Lucknow (Uttar Pradesh) [India], March 19 (ANI): India vice-captain Smriti Mandhana on Friday said that T20I skipper Harmanpreet Kaur will miss the first T20I of the series against South Africa due to a hip strain. Harmanpreet had retired hurt during India’s innings in the fifth and final ODI.
“She has been ruled out of tomorrow’s game and the rest of the update about the injury will be given by the medical team and the team management soon,” Mandhana said in the virtual press conference on Friday.
Giving a fitness update on the ODI vice-captain and T20I skipper, women’s team coach WV Raman had said after the final ODI: “From what I gather, she has sustained a hip strain Grade 1 and it will be monitored and all the necessary procedures will be followed. I do not think it is a serious injury, we might see her take the field in the T20I series, as things stand now.”
India suffered a 4-1 loss in the five-match ODI series against South Africa. Mandhana further said that the team will play with a different mindset in the T20Is and leave behind the ODI series loss.
“We all were really disappointed with the way the ODI series went, but in cricket it’s really important to leave the past behind and we have a lot of fresh faces coming in so definitely half of the team will not be thinking about the ODI series. And even the rest of us will try to forget the ODI series and now focus on the T20Is because it is a different ball game. We will try to forget what happened in the ODIs and go with a fresh mind in the T20Is,” she said.
“As a team, we had the discussion after the match, we spoke about what went wrong in the series and what the positives we had and we had a good discussion. I think those kinds of discussions are very important going forward. We had two days rest, we had a good practice session yesterday and today also we are just going to practice. I’m sure that the ODI series will be used as motivation,” the opening batter added.
The first T20I between India and South Africa will be played at Ekana Cricket Stadium here on Saturday. (ANI)
