Fortune India Exclusive: How Smriti Mandhana has become cricket’s other No.18 for brands after Virat Kohli

OCTOBER 2013. Sachin Tendulkar was playing his last Ranji Trophy match in Rohtak against Haryana, marking the end of an era in domestic cricket. Around 1,015 km away in Baroda, a teenager, Smriti Mandhana, captaining Maharashtra against Gujarat — that too with Rahul Dravid’s bat — became the first woman in an under-19 tournament to score 200 runs in a day.

July 2017. India had lost the ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup final to England at Lord’s. The disillusioned team returned home, but what stayed with Mandhana was not the dismay. As she later recalled on RCB’s podcast, “People actually came to receive us.” That defeat turned out to be one of the biggest turning points in Indian women’s cricket. Before 2017, women cricketers enjoyed little visibility and limited sponsorships. That changed in just 30 days. By the time the team reached the Lord’s final, Smriti Mandhana, Harmanpreet Kaur, and Mithali Raj catapulted to national prominence. It transformed Mandhana from a talented cricketer into one of the most sought-after faces of Indian cricket. Suddenly, young girls had role models they could identify with.