Mandhana more excited than nervous ahead of Trailblazers’ first match

"I think everyone is more excited than nervous because we are going to go out there after seven months," Mandhana said during the pre-match press conference.

Sharjah: Ahead of the team’s first match in the Women’s T20 Challenge, Trailblazers skipper Smriti Mandhana said she is more excited to get back to playing cricket than being nervous.

“I think everyone is more excited than nervous because we are going to go out there after seven months,” Mandhana said during the pre-match press conference.

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Trailblazers will play against Velocity, who defeated Supernovas by five wickets on Wednesday, in the Women’s T20 Challenge on Thursday.

Mandhana also said that the coronavirus-enforced break has not had an impact on her and she looked at it as a “positive time out”.

“I would say last two-three months were difficult, in the first few months I spent time with my family and I was enjoying that time. In the last two-three months, we wanted to get back to playing. We started training one and a half or two months back,” she said.

“I would not say it affected a lot, I would say it was more of a positive time out. We got to work on our batting and fitness and come with a positive mindset,” Mandhana added.
As it is a short tournament, Mandhana stressed that her team has to start “firing” from the very first match.

“Given the condition that we have not played matches for the last seven months, it is going to be tough (because it is a short tournament), we have to fire from the very first match because we do not have a lot of matches to make a comeback or something. So, it is important to start firing from the first match,” she said.