Mandhana and Shafali had opening partnerships of 19, 27 and 0 in the three games but Mandhana believes the two have a “huge role to play going forward” as India look to add the T20 World Cup trophy to their cabinet after winning the ODI World Cup at home in November last year.

“For me and Shifu, we are definitely timing the ball well but unfortunately we are not able to contribute in big ways for the team,” Mandhana said after the third T20I, which India lost by six wickets. “But for both of us, we’ll go back in the nets, keep working hard and make sure we come back stronger as an opening pair because both of us pride ourselves to give good starts and keep the momentum going. But unfortunately we could not do that in this series. We’ll take it in our stride and try and work hard.

“Coming early and playing a series in England before the World Cup is definitely good to do in terms of preparations.”

“She batted amazingly well today,” Mandhana said of her captain. “Harman, when she is at her best, it is a sight to watch. Today, she played all over the ground, really important innings under pressure today, especially when we needed that knock to get us to 180-plus. Really happy. I just feel everyone is definitely in good nick. It’s good signs going forward for the World Cup that Jemi [Jemimah Rodrigues], Harman, everyone is looking really beautiful to watch from the outside. Hopefully, I can watch from the non-striker’s end.”

India weren’t too far from a series win on Tuesday as they reduced England to 38 for 3 while defending 180, but Alice Capsey and Heather Knight put on a 137-run stand for the fourth wicket that took England home with nine balls to spare.

“We definitely started extremely well with the ball, 35 [38] for 3. [But] I wouldn’t really take anything away from the partnership they had,” Mandhana said. “I think they played really good cricketing shots. They played all around the ground. In hindsight, we would have been able to build pressure with a few dot balls, but we were not able to do that.

“As I said, for all of us, we will definitely look at this game in a way where we can do better and not repeat these mistakes in the World Cup coming ahead. With our bowling, we’ll go back to the drawing board, see which options can be better. We did that before this series, maybe we can go back again and now we know these conditions, what balls [need] to be bowled. I am sure those two-three things are going to help a lot of our players.”

India’s opening match of the T20 World Cup is against Pakistan on June 14 in Birmingham. They are pooled in Group 1 with Australia, South Africa, Bangladesh and Netherlands, and will also play two warm-up matches against West Indies (June 8) and England (June 10) before the start of the tournament proper.

“India-Pakistan doesn’t need hype,” Mandhana said. “We did play India-Pakistan at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham and [it was] sold out. Not only India-Pakistan, I just feel we really need to hype up the T20 World Cup. We don’t need to [do it for India vs Pakistan]; it’s already hyped up. I am sure a lot of people are going to come and support us. Hopefully, we can put up a show for them.”