By Deepika Sarma
The first match of the ICC World T20 2016 is today: India plays Bangladesh at 3.30 on March 15 in Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bangalore. Do you know everyone on the team yet?
The team’s confident, high-achieving captain from Hyderabad is 33 years old and is a right-handed batter and legbreak bowler. Having been a Bharatanatyam dancer in her childhood, she struggled with giving up dance for cricket, but was spurred to continue in cricket by her ambitious father. She began playing cricket at 10, and 17, was picked for the national team. Raj is an Arjuna awardee, and is the second person in the world to score 5000 runs in ODI women’s cricket.
Along with Raj, Goswami is one of the team’s seniormost players. As a right-handed allrounder and killer medium pace bowler, the strapping 32-year-old from West Bengal is a force to reckon with. It was the finals of the 1997 Women’s World Cup, played at Eden Gardens, Kolkata, where she volunteered as ball-girl, that inspired her to take up cricket as a profession. In her long and thrilling career that has in turn inspired many women cricketers, she has won a number of awards, including ICC’s Woman Cricketer of the Year in 2007.
Smriti Mandhana: Jersey no. 18
The 19-year-old left-handed batting sensation from Sangli, Maharashtra, is also a seam bowler, and plays with an assurance that seems well beyond her years. She was a part of the team that won against England in 2014, in what was the Indian women’s first international test match in eight years. Last month, she made her first ODI century against Australia in Hobart. Mandhana’s considered a rising star in the Indian team, and plenty of hope rides on her success during the T20 World Cup.
Kaur is one of the team’s big hitters. From Moga, Punjab, the 27-year-old is a medium-pace bowler. Coming as she does from a family of cricket enthusiasts, she’d been playing cricket even as a tween, and later, after formal training, went on to play for Punjab and North Zone. She began her career in international cricket in 2009, playing for the senior national team at the World T20 that year. Kaur, who maintains a diary in order improve her game, played a key role in the team’s magnificent rapid 140-run chase in Adelaide, Australia during the T20 series in January.
VR Vanitha: Jersey no. 59
India’s right-hand opening batter is from Bangalore. She’s 25 and bowls right arm medium. She has played for the Karnataka State team and captained India A in a warm-up match against New Zealand last year during the India-New Zealand ODI series in Bangalore in 2015. An ankle injury in 2014 that took months to recover from meant she couldn’t play at the World Cup held in Bangladesh that year. The confident cricketer gave an impressive performance in the international series against Australia and Sri Lanka earlier this year.
This right-handed player from Bangalore is a fantastic middle-order batter and legbreak bowler. She’s 23, and has played for the Karnataka State team and Railways. After an impressive start to her international career in 2011 with an ODI debut, she was out of the national team between 2012 and 2014, but made an impressive comeback. She was a high scorer during the ODI series against New Zealand in 2015, and a valuable player in the team’s achievements this year.
Anuja Patil: Jersey no. 82
23-year-old Patil, who is from Kolhapur, is a right-handed middle order batter and bowls offbreak. The spinner has captained the Maharashtra team. She hit her career best in India’s first T20 match in the series against Sri Lanka in February, taking 3 wickets, and even made a cameo with the bat to score 34 runs.
The 26-year-old allrounder from Goa is a medium pacer and right-hand batter. She began playing for Goa at 15, and made her debut in the international team in 2014, in the first T20 match India played against Bangladesh, in run-up to the Women’s World T20 2014. An engineering graduate, Pandey joined the Air Force and works as an Air Traffic Controller when she isn’t playing cricket. In a 2014 match in an ODI series against South Africa, she took 3 wickets and scored 50 runs, and is the first Indian woman to do so.
Sushma Verma: Jersey no. 5
India’s smiley wicket keeper is 23 years old, from Simla (she’s the first from Himachal to play cricket for India). Verma is a right-hand batter. She began playing cricket at 16, and by 19, she was playing for the U-19 team. The journalism aspirant even dropped out of a Masters in Mass Communication in order to pursue her cricket career. In 2015, in a T20 match against New Zealand, Verma stumped 4 players, equalling the women’s world record for most dismissals by a wicket keeper in a single match.
She’s a powerful left-arm batter from Chennai, and bowls legbreak. The 25-year-old began playing in cricket tournaments at 10, and began her professional career at 16, at the 2006 Asia Cup in Jaipur. In 2007-2008, she was BCCI Junior Cricketer of the Year, and was BCCI Best Senior Women’s Cricketer in 2009-2010. At 23, she became the first Indian cricketer to score a century in the ICC Women’s World Cup, in a match against West Indies. She broke Mithali Raj’s record of 91 against the Netherlands in the 2005 World Cup.
Ekta Bisht: Jersey no. 8
The left-arm spinner from Almora, Uttarakhand is the first international woman cricketer from her state. She’s 30 years old, and a left-hand batter. She made her international debut in 2011, and the following year, she claimed a hat-trick in the team’s 9-wicket win against Sri Lanka at the ICC Women’s World T20. In the final T20 match against Sri Lanka this February in India, she took 3 wickets, guiding the team to a thumping victory.
Don’t be fooled by her slight frame. This 24-year old dynamo from Agra bowls legbreak (and deadly googlies) and is a right hand batter. At the T20 World Cup in 2014, she took 8 wickets and was the only Indian player selected for the ICC Women’s World T20 2014 team, a super-team of sorts comprised of players from different countries depending on their performance in the tournament and suitability to the venue’s conditions.
Deepti Sharma: Jersey no. 6
The youngest on the team at 18, Sharma, who is from UP, bowls right-arm offbreak but is a left-hand batter. She made her international debut against South Africa in 2014, and played her first international T20 match against Australia in January this year. In an ODI against Sri Lanka in Ranchi this February, she took six wickets in a single match, contributing to India’s victory.
Rajeshwari Gayakwad: Jersey no. 1
She’s 24, and is a slow left-arm orthodox bowler. But Gayakwad, who is from Bijapur, bats right-hand. She was also a javelin and discus thrower, would walk for kilometres to reach her cricket coaching camp in Bijapur. She played for the Karnataka U-17 team and made her international debut in an ODI against Sri Lanka in 2014, and proved a valuable member in the side against Australia this January.
Niranjana Nagarajan: Jersey no. 99
This right-arm medium pace bowler from Chennai is 27, and is nicknamed Ninja. She bats right-hand. She started playing cricket at 10, and made her international debut in an ODI against England. Her Test debut was in 2014 in the historic match in England, where India won the first test it played in eight years. The ticket collector for the Railways in Chennai bowled a stunning set of yorkers at the Women’s Senior T20 Elite Group at the Super League this January, bringing Railways their sixth consecutive tournament title.
(Photos by Deepika Sarma)