like kapil dev. you have to bowl and bat like him, so i started as an all rounder, i used to be a fast bowler and then, i would bat as a top order batter, as an opening batsman. so the challenges that i faced growing up with no women s. cricket existed, so for a girl playing cricket, i that was very rare. so, i think i did not - have a place to practise so i used to practise with my brothers. . and i understood the other. challenges we faced as girls, we were always playing i these and stuff like that, so there was always - an issue for the wash rooms and stuff like that. so, if you are playing over- here, sometimes the wash rooms used to be really far i like a ten minute walk, i think but now the good things now times have - changed, you know? people actually treat - women s cricket as equal as men s cricket. i used to be the only girl, 300, 400 boys but now, i see otheri girls take up the sport, - pick up, you know, and playing cricket and competing
of wearing the jersey, there was a lot of expectation on my shoulders, and those days we did not have the ritual of handing over of the debut caps, so i did not have that, i do not have to go through that, but maybe in a way, god made it up to me because in the last five or six years, i ve given a lot of india caps to the girls, but each time i gave them, i ve enjoyed that ceremony, because it s a huge, huge honour to sort of hand over the cap. in a way, you are bringing in talent into the side. i rememberthe point that i felt 0k, women s cricketj has made a mark in india i was the time, i would say, 2017, where india reached the finals at lord s, - and i think we lost- by nine runs or something. i think that was a turning. point for me, personally i might be wrong but for me, i think that was when cricket. in india became a huge thing. and when someone recognises you for, you know, doing welll out there, it s a good feeling and especially when nobodyi used to do it at once and now
his daughter as a cricketer than his son. growing up. being a mumbai cricketer, one name is for sure, . that s sachin tendulkar. ithink.. i mean, at that time, - i should not like watching a cricket a lot but the thing| was in my family, everyone was so crazy in the moment . sachin tendulkar should come to bat, like, leave everything, . come here and watch the game. the moment he gets out, tv s off, that s it. - sachin played a big role in my career a big influence, you can say because growing up with him, you know, like, you know, he was a role model for all of us as youngsters. and then, we start following cricket and we become mad and wherever cricket is to play, we just keep watching and watching and watching. my first coach was a big fan of kapil dev. so he s, like, he would tell me, like, you have to be
and you have to go by local train from here to chandor and those days, you know, transport was not up to the mark. we used to rely on a local train because there was no training facilities available in chandor, so i had to come to calcutta those days, it was used to call calcutta, now is kolkata. if it was not for my parents supported me, ithink- i would be where i am today because at that time still, . things in india were not as not as open as they are today. - women s cricket has made a lot of progress and we are getting so many good young women cricketers now and many of the families are supporting their kids to try and pursue cricket as their career, which was not the case in the past. for my grandparents, it was very difficult to process that their granddaughter was getting into sport, and a sport
background, he was very strict in terms of timing. he was very punctual and he still is so he insisted that i tag along with my brother to his academy in the mornings. so i would just carry my homework, open my eyes in the ground and do my math homework and my brother used to play cricket. that is how i was introduced to the sport. and my first impression of that sport was it was only meant for boys because academy was full of boys. i didn t happen to see not even a single girl. my brother s coach, jyoti prasad, he used to watch me every day. he said, like, you know, i used to watch you as a kid. every day 6am, you would come sharp to the academy and i thought, let me see how the girl plays, so one day, he said, pick up the bat. let me throw you a few tennis balls. i happened to probably impress the coach better than my brother and he told my father to invest his energy and time and money into turning