‘Ten Years of Your Leadership Have Been Fantastic’: Smriti Mandhana’s Message for Harmanpreet

Smriti Mandhana has sent a warm message to outgoing India women’s captain Harmanpreet Kaur after being appointed as the team’s new skipper across all three formats, amid reports of differences between the two senior players.

Mandhana took to Instagram on Wednesday to reflect on Harmanpreet’s 10-year stint as India captain and said she hoped they could continue working together to bring more success to the country.

“It’s been a pleasure playing with you for so many years,” Mandhana wrote.

“Ten years of your leadership have been fantastic and together, we will strive to bring many more laurels for our nation,” she added.

Her post came just hours after a PTI report claimed that the captaincy transition had led to unease between the two players. A team source was quoted as saying that Mandhana and Harmanpreet had “not been seeing eye to eye for a while now”.

The report further claimed that Harmanpreet was keen to continue as captain in Tests and ODIs, but the BCCI had decided to bring in a change of leadership across formats.

Harmanpreet first became India’s full-time T20I captain in 2016 and took over the ODI and Test captaincy in 2022. During her tenure, India won their first-ever Women’s ODI World Cup last year and followed it up by claiming a second consecutive Asian Games gold medal in T20 cricket.

India also won a silver medal at the 2022 Commonwealth Games under Harmanpreet’s leadership.

Despite her achievements, India’s performances in T20 cricket had remained a talking point, with the team making early exits from consecutive T20 World Cups. The side, however, ended its long wait for an ICC title by winning the ODI World Cup on home soil last year.

Mandhana had previously spoken about the team’s ambitions after the Asian Games triumph, saying India should now target bigger tournaments. The leadership question was later discussed at a BCCI review meeting in Guwahati, chaired by board secretary Devajit Saikia.

Harmanpreet was informed during the meeting that a change in captaincy was likely, paving the way for Mandhana to take charge of India across all three formats.