{"id":18609,"date":"2025-10-17T18:24:58","date_gmt":"2025-10-17T18:24:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tezgyan.com\/index.php\/2025\/10\/17\/she-found-that-year-tough-but-heather-knight-reflects-on-years-of-rivalry-with-smriti-mandhana-cricket-news\/"},"modified":"2025-10-17T18:24:58","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T18:24:58","slug":"she-found-that-year-tough-but-heather-knight-reflects-on-years-of-rivalry-with-smriti-mandhana-cricket-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tezgyan.com\/index.php\/2025\/10\/17\/she-found-that-year-tough-but-heather-knight-reflects-on-years-of-rivalry-with-smriti-mandhana-cricket-news\/","title":{"rendered":"‘She Found That Year Tough But…’: Heather Knight Reflects On Years Of Rivalry With Smriti Mandhana | Cricket News"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Heather Knight lauds Smriti Mandhana’s growth as a batter and leader, reflecting on her performances for India, Western Storm, Hobart and RCB.<\/h2>\n
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Smriti Mandhana has been in stupendous form over the past year (Picture credit: ICC)<\/p>\n<\/figure>\n

Star England batter Heather Knight has said that her first look at a young Smriti Mandhana made her think highly of the youngster, adding that she admires how the Indian star has progressed in her career as a classy batter.<\/p>\n

Mandhana<\/span> was in brilliant touch with the bat during the three-match ODI series against Australia before the start of the ongoing Women\u2019s World Cup.<\/span><\/p>\n

Notching two memorable hundreds, Mandhana finished the richly contested bilateral series as the Player of the Series.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI remember playing against Smriti in her first ODI series. When I saw her playing, I thought, \u2018Wow, this girl is going to be quite good.\u2019 Since then, I have admired how she has progressed as a batter and how she has always carried herself with such calmness. That calmness is something I also value as a cricketer and I have a huge amount of respect for her,” Knight said while speaking to\u00a0JioStar.\u00a0<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Mandhana made her Test debut against England, in which she scored a half-century in the second innings.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have seen her grow as a leader as well. I played with her in England for Western Storm, in Hobart and later at RCB under her captaincy in what was a really tough first WPL season for us,” Knight said.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cShe (Smriti) found that year difficult, but I gained a lot of respect for how she came back stronger the next season and found her feet. Smriti is a proper rock star in India. Just being around her and seeing how many people recognise her is crazy, but she deals with it all while staying humble,” Knight added.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Not having found her feet till recently in the Women\u2019s World Cup, Mandhana played an 80-run knock against Australia on Sunday, October 12, but that didn\u2019t help India\u2019s cause.<\/p>\n

First Published:<\/span><\/p>\n
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October 17, 2025, 23:45 IST<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

News<\/a> cricket<\/a> ‘She Found That Year Tough But…’: Heather Knight Reflects On Years Of Rivalry With Smriti Mandhana<\/span><\/div>\n
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Last Updated:October 17, 2025, 23:47 IST Heather Knight lauds Smriti Mandhana’s growth as a batter and leader, reflecting on her performances for India, Western Storm, Hobart and RCB. Smriti Mandhana has been in stupendous form over the past year (Picture credit: ICC) Star England batter Heather Knight has said that her first look at a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18610,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18609","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cricket"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tezgyan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18609","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tezgyan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tezgyan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tezgyan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tezgyan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18609"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tezgyan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18609\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tezgyan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18610"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tezgyan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tezgyan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tezgyan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}