Smriti Mandhana: Family helped me get to where I am today

Pic courtesy/Smriti Mandhana's Instagram account

India women's cricketer Smriti Mandhana recently provided her fans with a glimpse into her cricketing journey.

Smriti posted a cool throwback picture from her younger days on social media site Instagram and had a lovely captioned to go with it: "It all began with me watching my brother play cricket. One day I decided to pick up the bat as well and started playing. At an early age of nine, I got through the Maharashtra U-15 team and since then I decided to take this up as a sport professionally. Thankfully, I have immense support from my family, who have helped me get to where I am today."

The 24-year-old cricketer moved to the city of Mumbai from Sangli, Maharashtra when she was just two. Her brother Shravan has been a major inspiration behind her pursuing cricket as a career. She would often turn up to watch him play during the U-16 tournaments. At age 11, Smriti herself made the cut to the Maharashtra U-19 women's cricket team. Ever since her international debut in ODIs in 2013, Smriti has played 51 matches scoring 2,025 runs at an average of 43.08 and a strike rate of 84.41. She has 4 hundreds and 17 fifties to her name with a top score of 135. She has also played 75 T20Is scoring 1716 runs averaging at 25.23.

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