From the diary of a cricketer

It’s been 3 years, but I still haven’t gotten over the fact that I won’t see my grandfather again… Whenever I come back from practice or have done particularly well in a match I think of Thatha and how much of a support he was. When I first started playing, every time we played a match, Thatha would come and watch, no matter how far the ground was from home. He watched me first score my first runs for my club and for the state. He saw me take my first catch. The only thing he missed was my first wicket for the state, which only came in my second tournament! What I miss most about Thatha was our trips to the station before every tour. He made it a point to speak to every member of the team—find out their name, what they were (batswoman/ bowler/ keeper, etc)—and he would say good luck to each one individually (WITH the name). After one meeting Thatha knew all my teammates! It was rather amazing… The year Thatha passed away I had what I believe was my ‘breakthrough’ season. I scored my ...

A few days ago a 16 year old boy named Naresh asked me whether there was no competition in girls cricket. I couldn't help but laugh when he asked me... Women's cricket may have made progress in terms of facilities and exposure, but the number of players remains the same. In state teams you find 25 girls fighting for 15 spots. On the other hand, in boys teams, almost 200 boys fight it out for a place in the selected 15. Like I told Naresh, in comparison to men's cricket, women's cricket is far behind, not in terms of facilities, but in terms of competition. Boys start playing cricket in school, when they're 10 or 11, whereas girls have no such opportunity.  The boys have many more categories as well- under 12, under 14, under 16, under 19, under 22 and ranji. The girls have two categories-  under 19 and seniors (open category). Not only that, but boys have more of an opportunity to play just for fun. They have inter-school matches, inter-college matches, corporat...