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Showing posts from 2014

Technique v/s Temperament

Charlottle Edwards playing one of her famous flicks through the mid-wicket area. If you have heard of Charlotte Edwards’ prowess with the bat but haven’t  actually seen her in action, you’ll probably think of a woman who can play a perfectly elegant cover drive, back-foot punch, pull shot, and on drive. With more than five and a half thousand runs (5597 runs in 180 matches, to be precise) under her belt in One Day International cricket, I wouldn’t blame you. For don’t we all think that for someone to be consistently successful, they must have a ‘close to perfect’ technique; one that can be easily imitated by stars of the future?! Charlotte Edwards, though, is no Rahul Dravid. She does not get a giant stride in to smother the swing or spin; neither does she allow her top hand to ‘lead’ when she bats. She is an extremely bottom handed batter. The little I have seen of her, she quite obviously loves scoring through mid-wicket and behind square on the off side (strokes where the

'The Big Test'-- Women's version!

As the Indian women’s cricket team gears up for the Test match against England, my mind drifts to early February, to a time when I was swallowing every bit of information Cricinfo had to offer. I navigated my way to the Women’s Cricket page and the first article that showed up was titled ‘Indian women to play Test in England’. My heart raced and I couldn’t believe my eyes. I quickly opened the article and read it… Not once, not twice, but all of five times. Each time I read it, the excitement grew. Could it really be? A Test match after eight years? And in England at that? I must be dreaming! The news just couldn’t get any better. Turns out I wasn’t dreaming after all, and the Indian women are scheduled to play a solitary Test match in Wormsley followed by three one day games at Scarborough. The squad landed in England a couple of weeks ago. Of the 16, only three have any experience playing Test cricket. All three though, have played Test cricket in England and tasted success the

Putting me through my paces

A post slightly overdue! The 2013-14 cricket season has been a roller-coaster ride to say the least, and it hasn’t even ended yet. All the on/ off-field drama aside, for me it was one where I saw two teammates walk away from the game. Both girls had major impacts on my career and were very good friends—something that made their stepping aside even harder to deal with. The first was Sowjanya Nath, the leader of the Hyderabad pace attack. Sowji taught me so much about the art of fast bowling. I watched in awe as she ripped through top quality batting sides. We fed off each other, monitoring each other’s progress and willing the other to do well. Initially, my relationship with Sowji was purely professional. We spent years in the same camp and same dressing room, but things didn’t look like they would change. I looked up to her and respected her. I admired her too, but all from a distance. She was, after all, my senior; I couldn’t possibly expect her to treat me as an equal!