Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], August 17 (ANI): Australian cricket icon Ellyse Perry spoke on the upcoming inaugural edition of the ICC Women's Champions Trophy, expressing her excitement for the tournament and how it is a great opportunity for women's cricket.
The ICC Women's Champions Trophy will take place from February next year, with the competition featuring six teams playing a round-robin format, in a T20I format.
Speaking about the tournament to JioStar, Perry said, "It is another great opportunity for the women's game and for all the teams competing. From my perspective, it is a new event, so it is always exciting to be a part of something like that, and a new spot on the calendar, which will be great for everyone. You want to play every game well. This tournament will be physically and mentally a huge challenge, and preparing for those matches, everyone's going to have to be spot on. But yeah, the mindset remains the same, you just want to win every game."
Ellyse also delivered some high praise to Indian women's cricketing duo of Smriti Mandhana, her Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) teammate in the Women's Premier League (WPL) and Harmanpreet Kaur, the skipper of Mumbai Indians (MI). She said that it is the "amazing skill, incredible willpower and strong mind" of Smriti that makes her so successful. The Aussie superstar also praised Harman's tenacity and competitiveness.
"What makes Smriti so successful? Her amazing skill. I think she has got incredible willpower and a super-strong mind, the way she approaches the game, the way she prepares, the way she knows herself, the way she thinks about things, and the way that she likes challenges. She has got it all. Harman, I think her greatest strength is her tenacity. She is a great competitor, and when she is going, she hits some of the biggest shots in the women's game," she added.
Perry, who recently featured in the Women's Hundred competition with Birmingham Phoenix, scored 223 runs in seven innings at an average of 55.75, with a strike rate of 136.80, with two fifties and a best score of 68*, spoke on her longevity as well. Having made her international debut as a teenager in 2007, she said that "one has to naturally grow as a person" and there is always something new to learn and always a room for improvement.
"You just naturally evolve as you grow as a person. Over the many years I have been involved in the game, there have been a number of different experiences, things to learn, people to work with and new avenues to explore. I guess incrementally, as that happens, you add new things or change the way you do things. Often, they're only small changes, but over a long period of time, there's always something new or a way to learn more. Hopefully, you keep improving, and that just kind of builds upon each other. So, nothing in particular, just years of experience," she added. (ANI)
Ellyse Perry speaks on inaugural women's Champions Trophy, Indian duo of Smriti-Harmanpreet
