She will share dressing room with Meg Lanning and Sophie Ecclestone.
Amid the Women’s Premier League (WPL) 2026, Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) batting maestro, Smriti Mandhana, has earned a fresh contract in England’s The Hundred. As the January 16 deadline approaches for Hundred teams to finalise their retentions ahead of the inaugural auctions in March, the Indian player is signed by the Manchester Super Giants.
Smriti Mandhana has been roped in by the Manchester Super Giants (formerly known as the Manchester Originals), a sister franchise of the Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) in the IPL, for the upcoming Women’s The Hundred 2026. The left-handed opener’s move from Southern Brave to the Manchester team has bolstered an already strong lineup featuring former Australian captain Meg Lanning and England spinner Sophie Ecclestone.
The announcement was made by the franchise through a social media post as they revealed the rebranding of Manchester Originals to Manchester Super Giants after the RPSG Group acquired 70 percent stakes of the team, investing 80 million pounds. The Instagram reel ended with a graphic showing the faces of Smriti Mandhana and Jos Buttler, with the new logo in the centre. From that graphic, one can speculate that Smriti Mandhana and Jos Buttler might become the captains of Manchester Super Giants for the women’s and men’s Hundred, respectively.
Smriti Mandhana, who led RCB to their first title win in 2024, is a top candidate to captain Manchester Super Giants in The Hundred. Since the team has not yet won the trophy, her joining stars Lanning and Ecclestone is a significant step toward glory.
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Smriti Mandhana hasn’t quite been able to live up to the expectations in The Hundred competition so far. Representing Southern Brave in the last four seasons, the southpaw has scored 676 runs in 29 matches, achieving a strike rate of 139.09 and an average of 26, along with five impressive fifties. Her standout season came in 2023, when she scored a staggering 238 runs in eight matches, with a 30.14 average and a strike rate of 151.79. The 29-year-old would hope for better returns at the new franchise.
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