GIRLS CRICKET ON THE MOVE

When my 10-year-old daughter watches Women’s Premier League cricket with more interest than any other sport that I follow on television, there dawns the great new reality that Women’s Cricket is finally getting a strong push that is eventually cutting the gap bit by bit between the astronomical following for the men’s game and upwardly-mobile women’s cricket!

The new-found young fans, is a very categorical indication that girls are now visualising their dream of taking up the sport and follow into the footsteps of their icons like Smriti Mandhana, Harmanpreet Kaur, Shikha Pandey and Jemimah Rodrigues among other India stars.

Panjim Gymkhana Cricket Academy (PGCA) has made it possible for the girls to get high quality coaching with its top-class facilities and dedicated coaching staff.

With more than a year of regular training at PGCA under her belt, my daughter and other girls from the academy are now engaged in playing practice matches against girls from other parts of Goa.

The practice matches are providing a lovely experience to these exciting young prospects and the improvement is there to be seen in every outing.

The girls are of course work in progress but the under-16s team comprising my daughter, who is the youngest in the squad, is being tested across various key aspects like decision-making, shot-selection, running between the wickets and the pressure of the target; among others. That’s the beauty of the sport in its full glory as hours and hours of training can never provide a trainee what a practice match offers.

And for a parent, the most satisfying result is to see the kid come out stronger than she did in the previous outing! Learning from mistakes and shaping the experience bank, is a practical guide to sharpening one’s skills as stakeholders of women’s cricket put in the hard yards to develop youth to take the game forward.