When I used to watch men’s day-night Tests, I never thought of experiencing this moment: Smriti Mandhana

India Women is gearing up for a busy cricketing calendar as they will be locking horns with England in all three formats of the game followed by the tour of Australia. India will be traveling to England in June to play their first Test match in seven years apart from three ODIs and as many T20Is.

Later in September, the team is scheduled to tour Australia as well to compensate for a postponed series in January this year due to COVID-19. Australia and India will play against each other in their first game in the purest format since 2006.

The two teams will feature in a lone Test on the tour and it will be a day-night fixture and will be played with the pink ball. The Test will be played from September 30 to October 3 at the WACA in Perth. The excitement in the women’s team regarding the day-night Test is sky-high. 

Young Indian batter Smriti Mandhana opened up on her excitement of featuring in the first day-night Test. The southpaw asserted that she used to be thrilled seeing the men’s team play the day-night Test and never thought that she will be able to play with the pink ball ever in her cricket career. 

“Frankly, when I used to watch day-night Tests of men, I actually never felt that I will be able to experience this moment — it’s wrong to say ‘I’ at the moment — that the Indian team will be able to experience the moment. So, when it got declared, I was like, ‘Oh, wow. That’s going to be crazy,” Mandhana told ESPNcricinfo.

“Now that we are going to play a day-night match, (we have) lots of things to work on but (there’s a) lot of excitement… excitement about being part of a day-night Test match, and that too in Australia, against Australia, it’s always a good challenge. It’s going to be a great moment for the Indian women’s cricket team,” she added.

When we got to know of the first Test, against England, the whole team was really excited: Smriti Mandhana

Further in the interaction, Smriti admitted that the day-night is far away and as of now their entire focus is on playing the Test match against England, starting from June 16. Speaking about the England Test, Mandhana said that when the Indian team got to know about the Test, there was a thrill in the entire camp and they are eagerly looking forward to it.

“When we got to know of the first Test, against England, the whole team was really excited. We all were looking forward (to it). The last Test match I was part of was in 2014, so it’s been quite a long time, we haven’t gone out in whites, so that excitement of playing a Test match (after nearly seven years) was on another level,” Mandhana said.