Smriti Mandhana emerges as expected successor after Harmanpreet Kaur’s resignation following BCCI review in Guwahati
On October 7, 2026, Smriti Mandhana emerged as the anticipated successor to Harmanpreet Kaur after Harmanpreet stepped down as India women’s captain following a BCCI review meeting in Guwahati.
Harmanpreet, who first led India in 2016, ended her leadership stint on a high after captaining India to a second consecutive Asian Games gold in Japan; the 37-year-old from Moga decided to relinquish the role following the review. Mandhana, a 30-year-old left-hander described in the piece as the country’s best batter “right now by quite a distance,” debuted in 2013 and has tallied more than 10,000 runs across formats.
The decision to move on from Harmanpreet arose at the Guwahati review meeting chaired by BCCI Secretary Devajit Saikia, where it was made clear a change of guard was inevitable; Harmanpreet subsequently chose to step down. The article describes the captaincy call as being taken after that BCCI review and says Harmanpreet decided to take matters into her own hands.
The piece reports longstanding tension over captaincy between Harmanpreet and Mandhana, quoting a team source: "They were not seeing eye to eye for a while now and that led to an obvious unease in the dressing room." It also notes Mandhana had grown impatient with selectors for maintaining the status quo on captaincy even after India ended their ICC trophy drought with last year’s ODI World Cup win at home.
Mandhana had publicly said she was ready to lead and, after the Asian Games gold, urged that India should be aiming to win bigger tournaments; the article also records India’s premature exits from back-to-back T20 World Cups as part of the wider leadership debate. The report includes a comment from Mithali Raj: "I thought she would be given the captaincy of the ODI format two-three years back. She can still be the ODI and Test captain and the T20 captaincy could be given to someone younger like Shafali (Verma)," Mithali had said.
The piece recalls earlier frictions when Harmanpreet took over the ODI captaincy from Mithali following the 2022 World Cup and says that those strained relations caused factionalism in the team. It also states that, with women’s cricket not facing the same scrutiny as the men’s team, this is not the first time selectors have erred in a leadership transition.
While India dominated the recent Asia Cup and the Asian Games, the article says Harmanpreet "was not at her best," and adds that as a pure batter her expectations will rise and "she will have to raise her game significantly to stay in contention."