The Hundred: Smriti Mandhana and injury hit Harmanpreet Kaur set to return India

India women’s star cricketers Smriti Mandhana and Harmanpreet Kaur are all set to return to their homeland and will no longer be part of The Hundred. Mandhana who was the opening batter of Southern Brave has decided to fly back home to spend time with family ahead of India’s women tour of Australia next month. She will be replaced by Ireland’s Gaby Lewis and on the other hand, Kaur will return to India owing to her quad injury.

Manchester Originals are not expected to replace her. After leaving The Hundred, Mandhana added that she will really miss the tournament as it was a new format and she really enjoyed it. However, she added that she has more international tourns coming up and in that case, her time with family would be compromised.

I’ll be watching the team at Lord’s and hoping they can continue our good form: Smriti Mandhana

“I would love to be able to stay with the team until the final but we’ve been away from home for a long time with more tours ahead. I’ll be watching the team at Lord’s and hoping they can continue our good form. It’s been a fantastic competition to be involved in and I’ve really enjoyed it,” said Mandhana in a statement.

It has to be noted that Smriti used to open the batting order with Danielle Wyatt in The Hundred for Southern Brave. Her final innings against Welsh Fire turned out to be her best where she scored a 52-ball 78 to gift her team a victory. She was declared as the player of the match for her remarkable innings had a total of 167 runs in the tournament. Harmanpreet on the other hand had 104 runs from three innings in The Hundred.

“Definitely the girls have been brilliant in the last set of matches, proud that we will be at Lord’s on 21st. We have a different match hero for every match so that says a lot. The bowlers deserve to celebrate a lot because we’ve won a lot of matches because of them. Luck went my way, but I kept going and didn’t think about the catch dropped and the no-ball. Anya has been special, a great leader for us, clear with the plans, and a great captain to play under,” said Mandhana after winning the player of the match award.