Team India’s new captain Smriti Mandhana shares her thoughts about the upcoming Champions Trophy 2026Scroll down to read the full story
Published: October 16, 2026, 5:26 PM IST
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Smriti Mandhana opens up on Champions Trophy 2026 (Image – X)
Team India women’s is ready to play under a new captain against Zimbabwe, after the historic stint of star player Harmanpreet KaurSmriti Mandhana will handle the team’s responsibility at the
Shaheed Veer Narayan Singh International Stadium, Raipur.
Ahead of this important clash, new Indian captain, Smriti Mandhana shared her thoughts on leading the national team for the first time in her career, after Harmanpreet Kaur’s stepping down across all the formats.
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India at Asian Champions Trophy hockey 2026: Past record, timeline and live streaming details
“Personally, it’s a huge honour to represent a country where cricket is almost a religionIn a way, you always start playing cricket to play and win matches for IndiaNever thought of leading the team, but again, it’s a big responsibility because when you step into this role, you have a job to do, you have to deliverI always say this, that though the captain’s name is first on the list, you’re always the last on the list in terms of keeping everyone aheadI’ve been in the leadership group for a while now, but I definitely had written down a roadmap every timeThe first thing which comes to my mind is the professionalism around it and trying to have this team go about things like a well-oiled machineLike, taking our training, power-hitting, fielding and professionalism one notch higherAnd, of course, setting a cultureYou always take up this role to leave it in a way where you set a culture for the team, for the rest of the girls to followSo, you don’t just do this for the sake of it.”
She also opened up about Team India’s former captain Harmanpreet Kaur’s captaincy“She’s led India, she’s the longest-serving captain, and has been such a great leaderSo I’m sure that her experience, especially with a lot of youngsters coming into the team now, and the way she works towards the game, is going to be inspiring for a lot of peopleAnd I hope they actually watch her, the way she goes about preparing for the game, and learn and take a lot of things from herSo, it’s going to be extremely important to have her around the youngsters for them to also groom in a way where sometimes it happens a year or two earlier when you watch someone and start learning from them.”
Smriti Mandhana also shared the importance of the upcoming ICC Women’s Champions Trophy 2027“In the T20 format, we have six matches before the Champions TrophyOf course, before that, the WPL will happen, but as an Indian team, three here and the three against South Africa for us to take it forwardSo, it’s going to be extremely important to see what style of cricket you want to play, what brand of cricket you want to play, and who’s fitting whereSo yeah, there will be a lot of takeaways from this series as well.”
