What’s it like to be Grace Harris?

“Zinger Stacker, McCrispy, McSpicy and Zinger Crunch”

Of course, the Zinger Stacker, finger-lickin’ good.

When you hear these words, you are perhaps convinced that this article is about burgers. And you might not be WRONG!!! 

This is what it is to be Grace Harris. Still confused about what the heccccck I’m talking about? 

Those are the four bats that Grace has carried to India for the Women’s Premier League (WPL). Grace knows her burger to the fries. In fact, at this point, she is as confused as us while ordering dinner, which one? She says, “It could even be the Zinger Crunch,” making her loyalty well known. 

Now, you know the reason behind her power. 

The funkiness doesn’t end there. One of the things that Grace loves a lot in life is to properly ‘piss’ off people, and she does it by wearing a mismatched pair of socks. Well, in her own words, she loves it that way. 

She doesn’t stop there; she even wears the funkiest of socks, breaking all types of ‘socks-code’ for athletes, with eight pairs for the upcoming WPL. 

“I’m hoping to include a few more in my collection. My favourite socks are a pair where I got a unicorn and a horse. It says, ‘The horse is them’, and the unicorn says it is me,” opened up Grace on being a socks ‘aficionado’. 

There is complete randomness about being Grace, but one thing is certain: when she hits the ball with that Zinger Stacker, it goes high-flyingly well outside the stadium. So, are the boundaries god-darn short in the first place? 

“If it is personal, they can be bigger. I like the size of them for the whole competition. Bowlers would disagree, If I bowl, I would say nah, we need bigger boundaries. If I’m batting, I would want bigger boundaries (laughs villainously).”

Earlier this year, Grace was all over the internet. You probably wouldn’t have recognised her, but now would be a good time to start paying attention to the monster-hitting genius. Before you get further confused, let me tell you what I was talking about: the video where she smacks a huge six with a broken bat, you’ve watched that, innit? 

“Throughout the game, I was in a good zone. I had already got a few sixes, and knowing North Sydney, I knew they would fly. The wicket is very batter-friendly, so you just kind of see the ball hit the ball we were setting, so it isn’t like we were doing any math. I got a good one that day,” Grace’s humbleness came aboard. 

The 30-year-old from Ipswich has a journey and a half, having made her WT20I debut all the way back in 2015. After just one year of playing cricket, it felt like her career was heading nowhere, watching the Australian women dominate from the sidelines, with either injuries or her form stopping her from getting a place on that rich Australian side. 

While it might have been exhausting and frustrating waiting for one’s turn, it was only because of twin injuries that Grace made her comeback to the setup, and ever since, has ensured that she becomes ‘undroppable’. 

“It is good fortune for me, and you just play your role and play good cricket (laughs),” Grace couldn’t have been more graceful. 

“Definitely, knowing your strength and how you are going about your things against a particular bowler. So, I do my homework, knowing who I have to front up against, and then from there, it is just training to take them apart. Hit as many sixes as you can.” 

Life is that simple. Hit as many sixes as you can. Even when the 30-year-old is sitting on her couch and watching a game, all that interests her is to see the ball fly. That’s where people like Sophie Devine, Ashleigh Gardner, Nat Sciver-Brunt, and Sophie Ecclestone captivate Grace's interest; they all let the ball fly. 

“I do enjoy cricket, I do enjoy watching good games, and how others go at it. I really enjoy Sophie Devine’s batting, a really aggressive and attacking game. More often than not, she can take on any kind of bowler, not just an off-spinner or a leg-spin bowler, I love her style of T20 cricket,” she lauded the Kiwi superstar. 

While crediting all of the above superstars for hitting a mean ball, Grace Harris returned to normalcy. “I might just look a little bigger sometimes (chuckles).” 

She’s a total cricket nut, maybe you wouldn’t realise it in the first place, but the more you hear her talk about cricket, the more you realise, hang on, she is very clear about her game. So clear that she ensures everyone in the radius of the cricket ground can hear her commentate her own game. 

“Commentating, sometimes cricket can get a bit frustrating. I find out that it is good to get the thoughts out when I'm commentating instead of keeping them inside. As much as it could grind the ears of a few people I play cricket with or against, it helped me stay and think clearly at the moment,” Grace spoke about her full-time ‘commentary’ stints in the middle. 

Naturally, your interest now gravitates towards how destructive she could be, and so the rightful question to her at this point in the interview should be, why not T10? 

“T-10: work smarter and not harder. Maybe I can get all around T10, that would be great. The Hundred was a good snapshot of it; it is the least amount of balls that I have played in a game. The first year didn’t go well for me, I love the format, and how they set the tournament up,” said Grace. 

“So, T10, I could get around that, although I’m a bit of a stats person, too, so I would love to know the stats on winning averages and winning scores. I’m all around that.”

Last year, UP Warriorz' Grace Harris’ stunning innings, where she scored 59 off 26, shot down Gujarat Giants in their opening fixture of the competition. At this point, Beth Mooney has had enough of the right-handed batter. 

“Many have (been irritated with Grace), Beth Mooney is perhaps high on the list. We have played together for ages, I bet she finds me annoying right now. She will definitely be one."

What’s it like to be Grace Harris?

“It is pretty good fun (to be Grace Harris) and fairly relaxed. I love thinking about the game, but I don’t like to think too much when I'm actually playing it. You have done the hard work, you just show up and enjoy cricket. I have always enjoyed cricket.”

Once we wrapped up the shoot, we couldn’t resist asking Grace, “So Grace, have you found a good burger joint here in Bangalore?” 

She thought for a minute. “Oh yes, the team manager had given me some places,” she replied. 

We went,” Oh, you should try Burger Seigneur, they serve a good burger,.” 

And she replied,” Oh ya, that’s the one everyone keeps talking about.”

If you get an order from Grace Harris, Burger Seigneur, thanks the folks at Cricket.com