As the squad prepares for the 50-over World Cup at home, Smriti Mandhana thinks India’s consecutive 3-0 series victories over the West Indies and Ireland have given them the ideal momentum to have their “best year in one-dayers.”

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India, which has been able to regain its form with six straight ODI victories, should emphasize the advantage now as they prepare to host the women’s ODI World Cup later this year, according to Mandhana.

“Two 3-0 sweeps are definitely really good in a World Cup year especially. We have to like keep going and have this for the best year for one-days (dayers),” Mandhana said in a video shared by BCCI.

In order to build up their highest-ever total of 435/5 and ultimately their biggest-ever ODI victory by 304 runs on Wednesday, Mandhana (135) and Pratika Rawal (154) put on 233 for the first wicket, the third-highest opening wicket partnership for India in ODIs.

“I wanted to go out and bat with a lot of freedom. I said in the dugout before I went in about that you know, I’m going to try and play my shots because not many times you get an opportunity to do that,” Mandhana said.

Rawal, who reached her first century with 154 off 129 balls, 20 fours, and one six, acknowledged that she slowed down as she got closer to the milestone but picked up speed when she crossed it. “As a batter I always wanted to score more runs and doing that for your country is actually a privilege and I am very happy,” she said.

“After (crossing) 70 (runs) I was a bit conscious that there was a hundred (on the cards). I was taking singles and going slow but when I got the hundred, I was like, let’s just go for it. The 50 runs after the hundred came a bit quicker. I was able to score the way I score,” she said.

Talking about her 233-run opening stand with the senior batter, Rawal said, “It felt like that it was happening with the flow, we didn’t think about it.”
“We got to know stats now, actually,” Mandhana added.