WPL 2024: How a mom’s ambition for her daughter sparked a cricketing revolution in Sajana and Minnu Mani’s Wayanad 

For a very long time, Wayanad didn’t have a ladies’s cricket group. Players whose hearts beat for the game needed to cross district strains to ply their commerce in different setups. Something modified when a bodily schooling trainer from Mananthavady village in Wayanad district – Elsamma Baby – got here into the image.  

Her daughter, Anumol, was an aspiring cricket participant, however barring herself and a pal with comparable aspirations, Wayanad didn’t have sufficient gamers to discipline a group for regional tournaments. Elsamma then recruited a number of gamers from her faculty to make up the outfit. 

“At the time, parents were not too keen to send their daughters to play cricket,” Elsamma tells  Sportstar. 

“Parents of children belonging to the Scheduled Tribes were a bit more open to the idea of their children playing sports as they didn’t mind their kids playing in the sun and reacted to benefits (monetary and otherwise) of the sport positively,” she explains.

Galvanising a group

S. Sajana, who represents Mumbai Indians, and Minnu Mani, who performs for Delhi Capitals, are among the many beneficiaries of this decided trainer’s efforts. 

Elsamma, a Kozhikode native who moved to Wayanad when she discovered work within the authorities schooling system, has been moulding the sporting ambitions of numerous ladies within the hill district for over 42 years now. For essentially the most half, her bodily presence within the system helped in her efforts to encourage ladies to take up sport. 

Elsamma explains with Sajana’s instance. 

“Sajana’s mother is a Panchayat councillor. Her father comes from an agricultural background and is decently educated as well. Sajana was doing athletics full-time before. Initially, they were apprehensive about switching her from athletics to cricket and the consequences it could hold for her future. Cricket has more monetary benefits than other sports in India. I convinced her parents that she could always pursue athletics on the side if she wanted.”

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“When Sajana got selected, she travelled to Chennai for a game which she won for Kerala with a boundary, much like what she did for Mumbai Indians in the WPL opener. Since then, she has always been in the mix for the state setup. Sajana now has a house where her prize money and monetary rewards have contributed the most,” Elsamma says.

Matter of belief

For a group unaware of what life in sports activities appears to be like like, somebody coming and asking you to pledge your youngsters to sports activities could be fairly anxiety-inducing. Financial concerns in regards to the future, the potential of life-altering accidents, security in travelling alone as ladies, the danger of exploitation – Elsamma says dad and mom are fast to contemplate worst-case eventualities when she approaches them to scout their youngsters for extra devoted sports activities coaching.

She doesn’t fault her dad and mom for it. Instead, she tries to contain herself as a lot as attainable bodily. She travels with the women so she will be able to chaperone them. This offers dad and mom a way of reduction to have a well-known face accompanying their youngsters. 

Travelling with the gamers gave Elsamma a ringside view of the disparities inside ladies’s sports activities.

“Sajana is the kind of athlete who can adapt to any discipline. She is a very gifted striker in football too, and even had the chance to experience life on the competition circuit. There is a stark difference in the kinds of transport, hotels and competition in general. There’s also the massive risk of a career-ending injury. Look at how things are in cricket. Once these girls have experienced the WPL, this is the story they’ll take back to the young girls back home and give them a higher standard to aspire to,” Elsamma explains. 

There’s no room for error as belief as soon as damaged, would imply shedding the group’s confidence in her phrase in regards to the energy of sport. That has made grassroot work of this type nearly a round the clock job for Elsamma and different lecturers like her. 

The want for foresight

Between nice expertise and expectations is a training infrastructure crying for some thought. A big a part of Elsamma’s work is to establish college students with promise whom she might then ship to academies. 

“As school teachers, we would handle multiple sports, but we didn’t have the infrastructure or resources to give dedicated training. A lot of the training I’m able to give is with the bats which belonged to my daughter. We are down to our last kit bag too.”

Elsamma, Anumol and some members of the family have been on the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium when Mumbai Indians and Delhi Capitals kicked off season two of the WPL.
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“Sajana and Minnu Mani are among the very few who persisted with the sport after progressing through all levels. We wanted them to make it to academies, which is what we’re doing. The Wayanad team has benefited from that. After losing for the first three years, we eventually won titles across all age groups (U16, U19, U23, Senior). Six children from our field are now in the state team,” she added. 

Elsamma factors out how a big bunch of scholars take up athletics early, and coaches then hesitate to provide their college students away to sports activities like cricket. 

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“There’s an easy solution to this. Look at students who regularly finish in the first four positions. There is potential to continue in the field. The others who finish lower and have basic athletic capabilities can use those strengths to excel in other disciplines. It will give communities a more diverse spectrum of sportspersons. If it’s not working out in sports, there are allied jobs in sports people can explore. My daughter works in the agriculture department, but her interest in the game means she doubles up as a selector in the Kerala Cricket Association,” she says.

“We also need to induct kids early because after a certain age children become self-conscious, particularly girls. That becomes an added barrier to cross.” 

“Lack of grounds, varied surfaces, and academies are also secondary problems. But there’s much to do before the conversation goes there,” she provides.

Life comes full circle

Elsamma, Anumol and some members of the family have been on the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium when Mumbai Indians and Delhi Capitals kicked off season two of the WPL. Hers was the loudest voice cheering on when Sajana hit that last-ball six. While she needed to head again to Wayanad quickly after, one other cricketer who handed by her cover – Asha Sobhana Joy, who she managed whereas travelling with district groups on the U19 degree – gave her another excuse to smile along with her match-winning efficiency. 

Like Minnu, she hopes abilities like Sajana and Asha can also break into the nationwide setup.

“Playing for India is the ultimate dream. My biggest dream was for my daughter to represent India. I am trying to live that dream through these girls,” she indicators off.