PLAYER DIARIES
Follow UsWhen Pooja Vastrakar started as a cricketer at the age of 10 in the sleepy town of Shahdol, Madhya Pradesh, there were not many who believed that she would go on to play at the highest level, let alone be the cog in the wheel of India’s Women’s T20 World Cup 2024 campaign in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Vastrakar, who had been in and out of the team, mostly due to injuries and sometimes form before the start of the Women’s Premier League (WPL), latched on to the opportunity of being alongside some of the game’s great minds at the Mumbai Indians’ set-up and gained in confidence.
This has been evident in her form since February 2023, when the last edition of the T20 World Cup took place in South Africa. The 25-year-old has picked the second most number of wickets for any Indian in all three formats combined.
More specifically, in the T20s, she is India’s best-ever pacer. Ever since Jhulan Goswami has hung up her boots, India have been in search of an enforcer of a fast bowler who could make things happen in the middle and is not dependent solely on conditions to move the game.
Vastrakar did exactly that in the T20I series against South Africa in July this year. She was asked to bowl at every stage, including an instance where she had to bowl in the powerplay when India were without Renuka Singh Thakur. She collected eight wickets in that series, showcasing herself as a utility player.
On the rugged and dry pitches of UAE, where the World Cup will be played, the conditions will most likely be similar to Chennai in July. Thus, Indian skipper Harmanpreet Kaur will be forced to turn to Pooja, especially in the middle overs, to break the game open.
Her numbers in Asian conditions suggest that had she been used more than she was during the two editions of the WPL, she would have been breathing down Deepti Sharma's neck to be the best Indian bowler both amongst pace and spin in Asia in the last 18 months.
Out of the 29 T20I wickets in 28 games that the pacer from Madhya Pradesh has taken since February 2023, 27 have come in Asian conditions in only 22 innings, once again underscoring her importance in the UAE.
Indian attack looks eerily similar in the middle overs, interspersed with spin bowling containers like Deepti Sharma, Radha Yadav and one of the two between Asha Sobhana and Shreyanka Patil. Thus, Vastrakar will not only be the breath of fresh air, but with her seam bowling and hit the deck lengths, she will be able to unsettle the batters who are facing spin at the other end.
But these last 18 months have come only because Vastrakar worked on her weakest link - fitness. There was never an issue about her bowling, batting and fielding, but it was her unfortunate knack for getting injured at important junctures that frustrated everyone.
Before her maiden opportunity to represent India at a World Cup, a 17-year-old Vastrakar had gotten injured in 2016 and missed the bus for the ODI World Cup in 2017. As fate would have it, she got injured again and missed the 2018 T20 World Cup in the West Indies as well.
The transformation since then, however, has been credit-worthy, with the all-rounder playing the most number of T20s amongst all the Indians over the last 18 months.
Describing the improvement in Vastrakar’s stamina and match-fitness, Smriti Mandhana, after the end of the South Africa series in July, said, “She is brilliant with the ball. It's been a long series for all of us, and being a bowler, I wonder how she has done that. We hope she keeps doing the same things and will be crucial for us in the World Cup.”
Apart from form, fitness, conditions and confidence being on her side, what also helps in Vastarakar’s case is her special performances in multi-team events. She has so far played 18 matches in the Asia Cup and T20 World Cup combined. The pacer has an average of 20 with both bat and ball, which is excellent for a bowling all-rounder.
In her first-ever and so far only ODI World Cup, Pooja was the pick among all the Indian players, scoring 156 runs and taking 10 wickets in seven games. It was in the same World Cup that she had a record-breaking 122-run partnership with Sneh Rana for the seventh wicket against arch-rivals Pakistan when India were reduced to 114/6 in the 34th over.
Vastrakar forces the selectors to pick her in the XI on a consistent basis because of her ability to come handy down the order, at number eight. While the numbers might not still prove her worth at the highest level, her childhood coach Ashutosh Srivastava begs to differ.
“For the Madhya Pradesh Under-19 side, she used to bat in the middle-order. Last year (2021), in the JS Anand Trophy (Women’s Senior Tournament), organised by MPCA, she smashed two double hundreds and one score of 150. She is ruthless with the bat,” Srivastava had told Indian Express after Vastrakar’s half-century against Pakistan in the 2022 ODI World Cup.
In the last three World Cups that she participated in, Vastrakar lacked one or many things at times. Be it fitness, form, intent or pure luck. But this time around, the aggressive on the field and soft-spoken off it, hitting the right lengths, generating raw pace, in-form, injury-free, more than a decent lower-order batter who has dreams bigger than the size of her sleepy town in the middle of nowhere, is the embodiment of everything that the Harmanpreet Kaur led side stands for.
“When I started playing cricket, there were no girls in my club but, when I returned to my hometown after playing for India in 2018, I saw 34 girls practising there,” Vastarkar had told Femina in an interview. From nobody believing in her at the start to girls idolising her, Vastrakar has somewhat achieved what we call a full circle in a career.
But imagine the size of that circle when she wins the World Cup for India and the number of girls taking up cricket swells by 10, maybe even 100 times than the 34 of 2018. That might be the biggest motivation for her heading to the UAE.
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