'Smriti in confident space with her cricket, leadership': RCB coach Luke William

Smriti Mandhana finding a seamless sync with her twin duty of being the captain and premier batter of the side is intertwined with the fortunes of Royal Challengers Bangalore in the WPL 2024 reckoned their head coach Luke WilliamsIn the first WPL season Mandhana struggled under the weight of this twofold role and her batting suffered a considerable dipThe elegant lefthander could only manage 149 runs from eight matches averaging a feeble 18 and at a strikerate of 119Shes practising really well Shes in a really confident and happy space with her cricket and the leadership Obviously theres responsibility with captaining and opening the battingBut shes got plenty of support from the team with lots of experienced seniors to help her and trying to really separate the two roles said Williams on Friday a day ahead of RCBs opening WPL 2024 match against UP WarriorzThe RCB had finished fourth in the fiveteam league last season and Williams said under the leadership of Mandhana the team looked much more settled this timeIve been fortunate to have spent a fair bit of time with Smriti through my involvement at the Southern Brave the Hundred team as an assistant coach and weve had lots of conversations around the learnings and experiences from last WPL season both as a team and individual I think weve really taken on board some of those learnings from previous year he saidWilliams said Mandhana and other senior players in the side have been working with young cricketers in the RCB fold to create a confident atmosphereThis time Smriti and others have invested time with our players and our senior players have been fantastic working with our young players and getting to know them and everyone is really starting to feel really comfortable and confident in the environment Were looking forward to taking those learnings into this year said WilliamsAlso ReadCrickets gender revolutionWilliams an experienced T20 coach who has a Womens Big Bash title under his belt with Adelaide Strikers said this time the RCB has good options in pace and spin departmentsThat was a large part of our auction strategy and around retention We were trying to get some real variety across all different aspects of the game but bowling certainly was a large part of that So we feel like weve got more variety with our pace and spinHopefully we will ask some questions to the batters and we have given ourselves some great opportunities with our bowling this tournamentiquest he saidIn that context the Australian coach said combining pacers Renuka Singh and Kate Cross from England in Power Play could give RCB an edge against their rivalsWere really excited to have two bowlers who swing the ball in different directions But theyre both world class swing bowlers Theyre going to prove a real handful for the opposition with that swingIf you can get an early wicket we can put pressure on the opposition and it is so important So were certainly looking at different options with how we go about our powerplay bowling We were really keen to keep working on it and to make a real impact he addedRCB had a 10day camp here in the runup to the WPL and Williams said the team managed to tick some boxes during the confabIt was about investing a lot of time in particular scenarios that we think they are going to play individually but also what they may face in the tournament with different game situations whether its run rates or whether we think someones going to bat against spin bowling or their ability to bowl against lefthand batters weve been quite specific with our targets said WilliamsWith agency inputs