Follow UsWomen’s Premier League (WPL) is a stepping stone to playing for India.
Urmmm scratch that, as in Priya Mishra’s case, it is the other way around. The 20-year-old leg spinner started out with the national team before she could even showcase her talent at the WPL level. Isn’t that quite special?
Mishra’s opportunity arose during the India A tour of Australia, where she impressed by taking 5/14 in a List A match, dismissing players like Maddy Darke and Tess Flintoff. This performance led to her being called up to the main team as a net bowler during the Australian tour.
This stint effectively became an audition for the Women’s T20 World Cup 2024, where she travelled with the Indian squad.
“I played for India A, where I made my debut. I got to pick up a five-wicket haul in that game, and then they picked me as a standby for the World Cup [T20 World Cup 2024]; I did well there as well,” Mishra recollected in a chat with Cricket.com.
What started as an internship eventually became a full-time job when Indian skipper Harmanpreet handed her the debut cap.
“I was feeling very proud. I can’t quite express that in words; I was very happy. Harry di cap de rahi thi to aur zyaada khushi hui [I was more happy that Harmanpreet Kaur was giving me the cap]. I thought that I had to just keep performing and continue playing for India.
So, when it was the day of her WPL debut, the pressure rarely affected the young leggie. In fact, she was so confident that in her second WPL game against UP Warriorz, where she scalped 3/25, she pulled off a Cristiano Ronaldo-style ‘Calma Calma’ celebration
“I saw this ‘I’m here’ celebration from Ronaldo [Cristiano], and it was stuck in my mind that I would use this celebration when I did well. When I picked up my maiden five-wicket haul in the Senior’s tournament, I did the celebration ‘I’m here’. We were losing the match, but then after the five-wicket haul, we won.”
But funnily enough, when the Delhi-born Mishra first started the game as a seventh grader, all she wanted to do was just play cricket. Hence, she turned her attention towards medium-pace bowling, which proved to be too much for the then Mishra.
“I started playing cricket when I was in 7th grade when Priya Chandra [coach] took me for training. She took me to my recent coach [Shravan Kumar], where there were no fees for women cricketers. They helped a lot, they gave me the kit even. I wasn’t from a well-off family, so I couldn’t afford a kit,” she narrated her journey.
“I told my mom that I wanted to play cricket, and she was like, ‘Do whatever you like; we are always there for you.’ So, my parents supported me a lot. They gave me a full license but told me that I had to do well. Back when I joined coaching, I was a medium-pacer. Because I’m quite short, I could never land the ball, and it would never reach the batters. So, someone in the training camp suggested that I join spin bowling,” she said.
Here’s where the funny part begins. Having trained as a medium pacer, Mishra couldn’t really differentiate between leg spin and off spin, as her notion of spin was just to land the ball at the batter’s feet.
“Then, I went to my coach and told him, ‘I want to join spin bowling’, and he immediately asked me, ‘Leg-spin or off-spin?’. I didn’t know so much back then, so I thought leg spin because I just had to bowl to the leg. Then, he said, ‘Okay, become a leg-spinner because I was short’,” Mishra recollected the decision.
But the audacity of Mishra, even at a very young age, was such that it could drive some of the top international players crazy. When she first started watching women’s cricket, there weren’t too many leg spinners who had made a living out of that skill. Hence, like everyone’s natural progression, Mishra turned to the legendary Shane Warne, who ironically is every leggie’s first coach.
“When I started watching women’s cricket, I couldn’t find someone who could turn the ball as much as Warne did, so I stopped watching. Then, I started watching Shane Warne. He had picked up 708 wickets, so I thought, if he has 708 wickets, I need to get 709 wickets. I learnt to bowl from him,” she said with a giggle after pausing at 708 wickets.
It was only later on, having watched a lot of leg spin in her life, did Mishra realise that, ‘Hang on, there’s more to leg spin than just turning the ball away from the right-hander’. That’s where, like most modern-day spinners, she turned to the googly or the wrong’un, but perfecting that was quite the task.
“First, I used to just bowl leg-spin because I couldn’t bowl googly,” Mishra said.
“That time, my coach had told me that you can just beat batters with leg-spin, you won’t get as many wickets. Then, he explained to me how to bowl googly, but I couldn’t get a hang of it. It didn’t land well, so he just asked me to practise. So, my full focus was on googly, then it affected my leg-spin. Then I started working on my leg-spin, and then my googly became bad,” she added.
Modern problems require modern solutions, and that’s where the 20-year-old devised a unique plan: 6 balls of leg spin and 6 balls of googly. Isn’t that what all the leggies in modern-day cricket do, anyway?
Alongside that, Mishra also did something very important: she positioned herself very differently from the rest of the crew: variations in pace or lack of flight. When leggies in the country were working more and more on flighting the ball, like Emirates EK 247, she was trying to give more backspin and revs to the ball.
“Like how normal leg-spinners bowl, they give flight, but I never had it in my mind that I have to flight the ball. I always wanted to be different from the others, so there was no point in flighting the ball. Everyone in women’s cricket can now play flighted delivery, so I wanted to turn the ball as much and make it tough for the batters and take as many wickets as possible,” she added.
Every minute of her time in the Gujarat Giants’ dressing room is a step towards the right direction - given she’s getting the unique opportunity to work closely with Pravin Tambe, a notable leg spinner who has more than enough Indian Premier League (IPL) experience to feed to the youngster.
“Pravin Tambe sir has motivated me a lot. He always tells me, ‘You have done well, you will do well.’ He tells me how to turn the ball square, how to bowl straight, and how to use my fingers to get more turn He taught me even my feet position well. He asks me what field I like, and he goes to Ashy [Gardner] and tells her the field setup. He’s been very good.”
Across her 9 WODI appearances, Mishra has already established herself as an integral part of the Indian bowling unit with 15 wickets. But for her, the ongoing edition of WPL is quite important, not to further cement her place but to pick up that ‘winning edge’ from Australian stars.
“I’m learning small things from all the overseas players, like how to read the batter’s mind from Ash Gardner and how she judges the batters. I have talked to them about this, and she told me that they judge the batter’s next step by looking at their foot, so I have tried implementing it. I want to improve this before the World Cup,” she revealed.
“Now, my focus is just on winning the World Cup and winning the WPL for Gujarat Giants, that’s all.”
Rest assured, Mishra isn’t going anywhere away from the national team till she wins that World Cup for the country. Because at 20, and given how she’s improving and learning about different things on the go, she might just be India’s present and future.
Till then, enjoy a bit of Warne, a bit of Ronaldo, and a lot of Priya Mishra.
