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When Kayne West produced this song back in 2007, he didn't have a certain Arundhati Reddy in his mind. But 17 years later, the 27-year-old is proving that every bit of the lyrics is aptly suitable for her.
If you were a cricketer and you needed to look up to an inspirational comeback, look no further than the 27-year-old.
She was dropped altogether from the Indian setup, and with Pooja Vastrakar showing her worth across skillsets, her comeback seemed to be polar miles away. Familiarity wasn’t getting her anywhere in her career. That’s when she stepped out of familiarity and moved away from the biggest possible team in Indian women’s domestic cricket - Railways - to find green pastures.
Ironically, that’s where God’s own country, Kerala, came to her rescue. She joined forces with Biju George, someone who she knows very well from the latter’s time with the Indian team and the Delhi Capitals side. There was some sort of familiarity, but she had to prove herself all over again.
Furthermore, there was no guarantee over her future as well. Because with Kerala, there was no longer a ‘safe and secure’ job. But such was Arundhati’s belief in herself that she decided to make the leap of faith, going back to the basics and building it all, one step at a time.
What’s changed majorly for Arundhati is that she’s not worried or panicked and has rather maintained a calm demeanour, marking the start of her comeback. That’s exactly what has happened over the last two years. Starting with Delhi Capitals, she worked hard on her release point and her wrist position, which was naturally only pushing it towards the leg side.
If not Biju, she had the duo of Ananya Upendran, former Hyderabad pacer, and Jemimah Rodrigues, someone she has spent some time with on the Indian side. Not just them, but Arundhati also slowly yet steadily started building a rapport with Arjun Dev, who has seen her progress from close quarters.
“With Arundhati, it just started a lot with tactics and mindset for bowling. Sometimes the fact that she could get the ball in naturally kind of looked as a disadvantage by many, whereas we brought it and said, ‘No, it's actually an advantage hitting the stump. Just have the right field,” Dev told Cricket.com in an exclusive conversation.
“Being brave with the field sets, getting more fielders on the leg side, no problem. Keep hitting the stumps. Advantage for you. So it's been more tactical with her in terms of bowling and putting her out here in the centre scenario,” he added.
Arundhati hit her natural lengths, but her newly found wrist position and adjustments to her action enabled her to hit the stumps far more accurately, making it tough for the opponents to get away. If you look at her bowling beehive after her comeback against South Africa, it is evident how she has targeted the stumps and has kept things very simple.
She was always there as an extra bowling option, but an injury to Vastrakar made her role in this Indian setup extremely crucial. Bowling as the first-change bowler in the clash against Pakistan, Arundhati applied pressure immediately with a tight over against Muneeba Ali, who looked restless.
But in her next over, the 27-year-old could have easily picked up her first wicket if not for the shambolic fielding display from Asha Sobhana. That didn’t deter her, however, as she picked up the prized scalp of Omaima Sohail, with figures of 2-0-5-1, bowling both her overs in the first seven overs.
When brought back into the attack in the 13th over, Arundhati got the ball to sharply nip back into Aliya Riaz, who could only watch the ball. The seam-bowling all-rounder could have nearly had another one when Pakistan skipper Fatima Sana hit the ball straight into the hands of Sobhana, who yet again messed up to drop the simplest of catches.
“I have worked a lot on my T20 bowling, in all stages of the game. I’ll be working even harder now. It was a day game and it was pretty hot, but we are used to this weather. I just wanted to hit the stumps more, use my variations and slower ones. That has been working for me,” Arundhati said in the post-match presentation.
If not for the last ball boundary, Arundhati Reddy could have gone her entire spell without conceding a boundary and, more importantly, picking up three crucial wickets, showing why the team backed her in the first place.
She’s not just worked it, she’s hard worked it to make herself better, faster, stronger.
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