Former India Women's Coach WV Raman Reveals "Right Time" To Give Captaincy To Smriti Mandhana
The Women's World Cup is scheduled to take place in New Zealand between March 4 and April 3 next year. India finished runners-up to England in the 2017 Women's World Cup under the leadership of current captain and legendary batter Mithali Raj.
Former India women's team head coach WV Raman has made a big statement about the future leadership of the Indian women's team. Raman, during an interaction with the media, said that left-handed opening batter Smriti Mandhana should be handed over the captaincy after the upcoming ICC Women's World Cup, which according to him is the "right time" for the change of guard. Raman said that Mandhana is a good reader of the game and has established herself as an international player. The southpaw recently struck her maiden century in the longest format, when she reached the three-figure mark against Australia in the Pink-Ball Test in Queensland.
"If you are going to talk about a captain for the future, you can't talk about the age factor alone. You have to be convinced that she's capable of handling it (captaincy), which I think she is. She's a very good reader of the game, she's also established. She might be in the early 20s but she's already played quite a few years of international cricket," WV Raman said during an interaction with select media houses.
The former Test cricketer asserted that giving over the leadership duties months before the World Cup might not be the best time but after the marquee tournament, irrespective of the result, is when the team management can think of handing over the reins to Mandhana.
"Again, as to handing over the captaincy to her now may not be the right time. Because we are few months away from the World Cup so you need to try and hold onto what has been happening in the recent past," he added.
Mandhana had a great outing with the bat in the recent historic pink ball Test between India women and Australia women in Queensland. The lefthanded opening batter became the first Indian woman to score a Test hundred Down Under.
The Women's World Cup is scheduled to take place in New Zealand between March 4 and April 3 next year. India finished runners-up to England in the 2017 Women's World Cup under the leadership of current captain and legendary batter Mithali Raj.
Raman coached India to the final of the ICC Women's T20 World Cup before being replaced by Ramesh Powar, who is in his second stint as coach of the national women's cricket team.
The Indian women's team is set to play Australia in a three-match T20 series starting October 7.  The match will be telecast on the Sony Ten network from 2:10 pm IST and will also be streamed on Sony Liv.
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