Smriti Mandhana - redefining the peak of perfection

The dictionary defines "in the zone" as a mental state that enables one to perform to the best of one's ability. For the past 15 months, Smriti Mandhana has lived there - a realm of rare composure and ruthless consistency. Across formats, but especially in ODIs, India's vice-captain has operated at a level few in women's cricket history have ever touched.

Most batters hit their prime in their late twenties and early thirties - a sweet spot where skill, experience, and physical ability align. By then, the rough edges of youth have been sanded down, their technique and temperament honed through years in the middle. It's an age when the game feels slower, the mind clearer, and the body still willing, before time inevitably begins to chip away at reflex and endurance.

Mandhana, who turned 28 last year has struck a purple patch since June 2024 notching records, rewriting benchmarks, and redefining what peak performance looks like in women's cricket. As India stands on the brink of the biggest women's game hosted on home soil, all eyes rest on the elegant left-hander from Sangli.

The period saw her becoming the highest scoring opening batter in ODIs, the joint leading century maker across Women's Internationals, and is one away from reaching the top for the same in ODIs. The period also saw her making her highest score in Test cricket as well as registering her maiden three-figure knock in T20 Internationals.

Since June 2024, Mandhana has amassed 2011 runs in 33 ODI innings, averaging 62.84 at a blistering 105.12 strike rate, with nine centuries and eight fifties. No batter in the history of women's ODIs has ever made 2000 runs in such a span. The closest was Australia's Belinda Clark, who scored 1999 runs in a 33-innings span between 1997 and 2000, a phase that included her iconic double century, the first ever in ODI cricket. She has made 23% of the runs tallied by Indian batters in this period, comfortably the highest share for India.

Mandhana began her golden stretch with a stunning sequence of 117, 136, and 90 against South Africa in Bengaluru in June 2024. From there, the runs flowed endlessly with hundreds against New Zealand and Ireland at home, and one away in Australia in between, and another in the tri-series final in Sri Lanka against the hosts. But the peak came just before the 2025 World Cup, in a home series against Australia, where she scored 58, 117, and 125. She currently sits as the leading run-getter with 365 runs in the ongoing World Cup and is the most crucial piece in the knockouts for the hosts.

Her nine hundreds in this phase are also the most by any batter in a 33-innings stretch, surpassing previous bests by Meg Lanning and Tazmin Brits (seven each). She took just 32 innings between her sixth and 14th ODI tons - a pace no one else in women's cricket has ever matched.

While Mandhana has managed a 45+ average combined with an 85+ strike rate against every opponent she faced more than once, she has served her best for the best - Australia, India's semifinal opponents. Her last five ODI innings against them read: 105 (109), 58 (63), 117 (91), 125 (63), and 80 (66).

Each knock carried a story: the 105 at the WACA where India collapsed after her dismissal, the 117 that powered Australia's biggest ODI defeat in Chandigarh, and the 63-ball 125 in Delhi that marked the fastest hundred ever by an Indian. Her 80 in Visakhapatnam laid the base for another 300+ total, only the second time Australia have ever conceded that mark in women's ODIs following the Delhi ODI. No other player has ever scored more than three consecutive 50+ scores against Australia. On Thursday, Mandhana could become the first in history to record six against a single opponent.

Part of Mandhana's success lies in her complete game against all bowling styles. Since June 2024, she's averaged 78.85 against pace (SR 102.60) and 60.46 against spin (SR 108.36). With a cut-off of 150 balls against both spin and seam, she is one of the five to score better than a run a ball against both but the only one to manage doing so averaging north of 50 against both styles of bowling. Remarkably, all five are set to feature in Thursday's semi-final.

On June 28, 2025, Mandhana finally checked off the last box in her career resume - a T20I hundred. Her 112 off 62 balls against England in Nottingham on June 28, 2025 came exactly a year after her 149 against South Africa in a Chennai Test. In doing so, she joined Tammy Beaumont, Heather Knight, Beth Mooney, and Laura Wolvaardt as the only players to score centuries in all three formats. Mandhana hit hundreds across the three formats in a span of 366 days, a figure bettered only by Wolvaardt who managed the feat in a span of just 97 days between March and July in 2024.

Five hundreds by Mandhana is the second instance of a batter scoring as many in a calendar year after South Africa's Tazmin Brits got the mark earlier during the World Cup. In 2024, Mandhana became the first batter to score four centuries in a calendar year which she did in just 13 innings. Before 2024, the most three-figures scored in a year stood at three achieved by six batters. Mandhana is also the only batter to score three-plus hundreds in a year on more than once instance.

31 sixes by Mandhana in 2025 happens to be the most hit by a batter in a calendar year in women's ODIs, surpassing the previous highest of 28 by Lizelle Lee in 2017.

1557 The partnership aggregate between Mandhana and Pratika Rawal in ODIs in 2025, the second highest in ODIs - Men's or Women's following 1635 between Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly in 1998. More of their partnership records can be read here.

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