Smriti believes that WPL has now transformed into dominant force with Harmanpreet crediting the tournament for winning mindset.
India is not “satisfied with just one World Cup,” according to Harmanpreet Kaur, and Smriti Mandhana stated that the T20 World Cup 2026 is the next objective, with the WPL being a crucial route to that end.
The skipper and vice-captain of India, who will represent the Mumbai Indians and Royal Challengers Bengaluru, respectively, in the WPL 2026 opening match, emphasised how the forthcoming tournament will assist ODI champions India maintain their momentum going into the T20 World Cup in June.
“Winning the T20 World Cup would be great,” Mandhana said. “We won the [ODI] World Cup but there are a lot of things in the team we need to work on. We really want to sit back and say, ‘yeah we are the best team in the world and world’s No. 1 team’. I feel we still have a lot of things to improve on. I’m sure WPL is going to bridge that gap for us in the coming years. Whenever we play for India, we always discuss how we want to be the best team in the world not for one tournament or two tournaments, but the whole year – any cricket we play [we want to] dominate it. I think every WPL is just getting us closer to that.
“It’s just been one-and-a-half months [since India won the ODI World Cup] and WPL is going to carry it [the momentum]. It’s always exciting to come back to WPL because the domestic players get to play with the internationals and the whole experience is just a very good thing for women’s cricket so I’m sure WPL is going to carry the momentum what World Cup did and hopefully it just keeps continuing for the next… forever.”
Harmanpreet said she was encouraged by how the younger players coming into the Indian side are aligned with the seniors’ goals, crediting the WPL for instilling a “winning mindset”.
“…we are not satisfied with just one World Cup,” Harmanpreet said. “We have so much cricket coming up this year and in the next two-three years, so every time we go to the field we want to go with the best mindset and that winning mindset we have been always talking about.
“It’s good to see that not only us, but other players are also coming up and thinking and speaking that we want to be champions all the time. I think that shows how WPL has made a lot of impact on us.”