India will miss vice-captain Smriti Mandhana in the fifth and final T20I against Sri Lanka at the Greenfield International Stadium in Thiruvananthapuram on Tuesday (December 30). Skipper Harmanpreet Kaur confirmed at the toss that the team had decided to give a rest to the opener for the final match of the year.
Harmanpreet lost the toss and was asked to bat first.
“We were okay batting also, so yeah, it’s an important match, so let’s play well and win,” she said. Just as we started this series, that’s how we wanted to finish. Hopefully, again, we’ll continue the same momentum and give our best. Yes, we have two changes today; Smriti and Renuka are resting. [G.] Kamalini is going to debut, and Sneh Rana is back.”
Kamalini is an all-rounder from
Tamil Nadu who bats in the top order. She’s expected to open alongside Shafali Verma.
India Playing 11: Shafali Verma, G Kamalini, Richa Ghosh (WK), Harmanpreet Kaur (C), Harleen Deol, Deepti Sharma, Amanjot Kaur, Sneh Rana, Arundhati Reddy, Vaishnavi Sharma, and Shree Charani
Mandhana will miss a huge record
Mandhana’s 2025 has been a season of sustained excellence and landmark achievements. She recently became only the second Indian woman to cross 10,000 runs in international cricket, reaffirming her status as one of the most prolific batters of her era.
Mandhana has dominated across formats this calendar year, scoring 1,703 international runs, the highest by any woman in a single year. That tally has also placed her within sight of the overall leading run-scorer in international cricket in 2025, with Mandhana trailing the men’s ODI and Test captain Shubman Gill’s mark of 1,764 runs, the highest by any player, male or female, this year.
Had she played this match, Mandhana needed only 62 more runs to become the leading run-scorer of 2025 across both men’s and women’s international cricket.
