Tanuja Kanwar of Gujarat Giants, very like a lot of the Indian home gamers taking part in the WPL 2023 is but to play her first worldwide match. However, her efficiency within the league has proved that she will play the sport on the highest stage.
Kanwar scripted historical past when she took the primary wicket within the ongoing Women’s Premier League through the season opener between Mumbai Indians and Gujarat.
However, Hailing from Himachal Pradesh Tanuja spent her childhood not understanding the actual fact that girls’s cricket exists.
“When I started playing no one around me in Himachal knew that there was something called women’s cricket, I just used to play gully cricket and play in school with the boy’s team. I didn’t know that a girl could go to an academy and get training” she mentioned.
While the 25-year-old spent her days as a toddler attempting to make her method into gully groups filled with boys or the varsity cricket crew, it was her father who seen her expertise.
“When my father saw that I had an interest in cricket, he changed everything for me. He found out where the academy was and he helped me join the academy. When I went there, for the first time, I was getting to know there was something called women’s cricket. We were 25 girls in the academy, that’s where my journey started,” she mentioned
According to Tanuja, the academy which is a brainchild of the present sports activities minister Anurag Thakur has helped ladies like her and India internationals Renuka Thakur and Sushma Verma discover the platform to coach and realise that “women’s cricket can be played professionally.
As the world watched Tanuja pick up four wickets in the five matches she played, what they perhaps didn’t comprehend is that she’s the same girl who took a six-wicket haul in a domestic match.
As the Himachal team took on Meghalaya on 21st March 2021, Tanuja went into the match with quite a few apprehensions as she didn’t feature in the wickets column quite often.
The Covid-19 second wave further compounded her problems but with dedication and determination, she made a brilliant comeback.
“I just told myself, this is the last match make up for whatever mistakes you have made and take as many wickets as you can because you never know when you’ll get a chance again.”
-Making alternatives count-
And when the chance arrived, Tanuja walked out of the sphere confidently with figures 6/10. A telling story for a participant who performed her first big-league match (WPL) and struck gold.
However along with her head on her shoulders she mentioned, “ I was a little nervous but that is very important you shouldn’t get ahead of yourself. I wanted to keep things simple and just bowl stock balls in my first WPL over, so I tried not to build it up too much and kept telling myself not to overthink while playing, because if you think about how big the stage is you’ll get everything wrong.”
-’Tamasha’ on Auction Day-
For somebody who helps her crew win essential matches, the Shimla woman didn’t charge herself excessive sufficient to bag a deal price 50 Lakhs. On the public sale day, she tried to catch the public sale on her cellphone whereas sitting alone in her room however she wasn’t spared of the ‘tamasha.’
“This is a very funny story, when my name was announced the only feeling was please someone raise your hand, just one team, please. But once Gujarat raised their hand, I thought I’ll go at my base price. I was trying to follow the auction but my phone kept ringing. It was a tamasha, I cut the call, once, twice, thrice and the fourth time I picked it up and asked my friend now you only tell me what actually happened in the end because I wasn’t able to watch the whole thing. When she told me I got picked by Gujarat for 50 lakhs I was shocked, I thought how did this even happen to me.”
Tanuja’s dream of chatting with abroad gamers and attending to learn about their expertise in a bid to be taught new methods, got here to fruition. However, having seen the worldwide gamers from the confines of her house on tv after which rubbing shoulders with them was a dream come true.
“The best part is they are always ready to share their experience and make us a part of all the discussions. For example, Ash (Gardner) will always come up to me before I bowl and help me analyse the situation on the ground so that I know what ball to bowl, that is very nice that someone of their stature is helping us in this way, I didn’t think it will be like this,” she mentioned.
With the event nearing its end result and groups leaving all of it on the market on the sphere, there are numerous takeaways. However, none are as essential as giving a stage to the Indian ladies who had been scoring umpteen runs and selecting wickets at will, albeit in silos.
“The best part about WPL is that, even when I pick one or two wickets everyone knows about it, someone will walk up to me and say well bowled. Earlier when I had picked six wickets in a domestic match, no one knew about it. Girls in my Railways team seeing us have hope that ok if we do well in domestic cricket there is hope it’s not like earlier.”
Alas, Tanuja is right, From going into cricket stats rabbit holes to crew and participant hashtags trending on Twitter, the world is taking discover and the Women’s Premier League has given them a platform to showcase their expertise.
Source web site: sportstar.thehindu.com
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