Eight years ago, when a dentist in Uluberia enrolled his five-year-old daughter in cricket coaching, neighbours mocked him — not for her talent, but her skin colour. “She is so fair. Why let her burn under the sun? This is so stupid. She should learn music,” he would hear.
On Sunday night, that same girl, now part of the Bengal Under-15 squad, was
jumping in joy on her bed as her idols won the ultimate cricketing glory. The taunts have long stopped, and the World Cup win has put the spotlight on Ariktha Manna, whose neighbours now expect her to wear the India cap one day.
“My father stoked my interest in cricket. Now, cricket is my life,” Ariktha, an ambidextrous spin bowler and top-order batter, told Metro on her way home from the Bengal squad’s practice at the Jadavpur University grounds.
Ariktha is not alone. The triumph of the Women in Blue has ignited new hope across Bengal — not just in cities, but in remote corners where women’s cricket was virtually unheard of a decade ago.
Bengal are the defending champions of the Women’s Under-15 One-Day Trophy organised by the BCCI. Last December, they beat Punjab by 47 runs in the final in Jaipur.
The team was captained by Salt Lake’s Sandipta Patra, a Class X student at Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan.
“This victory is so inspiring. It has also raised expectations from us,” said Sandipta, a batting all-rounder who idolises Smriti Mandhana and Ellyse Perry.
That “burden of expectation” was unthinkable 15 years ago because hardly anybody seemed to care, said Sambaran Banerjee, Bengal’s Ranji-winning captain, coach and former selector for the national men’s team.
“We knew names like Diana Edulji and Shantha Rangaswamy, but beyond that, there was nothing significant happening at the grassroots. In Bengal, hardly anyone cared that women played cricket,” said Banerjee.
“I think the real change came with Jhulan Goswami. She was a trailblazer who made people believe women could excel in cricket too,” he said.
Goswami, one of the game’s greatest bowlers, was part of the team that reached the 2017 World Cup final, narrowly losing to England. On Sunday, at the DY Patil Stadium in Navi Mumbai, Smriti Mandhana locked a teary-eyed Goswami in a bear hug and handed her the trophy saying, “Didi, yeh aapke liye tha (This one was for you).”
The ripple of that moment reached the nets at Vivekananda Park, where a bunch of young girls trained with new-found enthusiasm on Monday afternoon.
“The win has set an example. We already have around 100 girls training here, and two more have enquired about admission since morning. It feels rewarding to see how
the victory is inspiring the next generation,” said Swapan Chatterjee, trainer at the
Pal and Chatterjee Cricket Academy.
Ladasha Singh, 13, a Class VII student of South Point School, said Siliguri superstar Richa Ghosh’s words after the win struck a chord.
“When Richa di said, ‘Don’t give up however tough the situation might be,’ it felt like she was speaking to us. It made me believe that if she can, so can I,” said Ladasha, a right-handed batter who plays for her school team.
Pint-sized Adrika Ghoshal, just five years old, was the youngest player at the academy on Monday afternoon.
Adrika already has a top score of 20 in a club game in Tollygunge, said her beaming father, Swarnajyoti Ghoshal. “She started playing at three, and now she never wants to miss practice,” added the resident of Behala Sakuntala Park.