U19 WC: From Tennis To Cricket, ‘grateful’ Parunika Sisodia Determined To Make Her Mark

U19 WC: From tennis to cricket, ‘grateful’ Parunika Sisodia determined to make her mark (Image Source: IANS)

Yamuna Sports Complex: Initially, Parunika Sisodia seems like any other teenager, with sparkling eyes and an honest smile. Parunika, however, isn’t your average Indian teenager; she played tennis as an Under 12 player in New Delhi, looking up to Serena Williams and Sania Mirza.

However, in January 2018, while watching her father, Sudhir, teach cricket at Yamuna Sports Complex in East Delhi’s Surajmal Vihar, Parunika became interested in the sport, trading her tennis racquet for a cricket ball.

Since making that transition, her cricketing career has been through its ups and downs. But with gratitude, maturity and humour in her words, Parunika is poised to significantly contribute to India’s U19 Women’s T20 World Cup campaign, aiming to retain the title they won in 2023.

“I am feeling very grateful because it’s a very exciting emotion – playing for India, that too in a World Cup is a big thing. I am also grateful for this opportunity because I was there in the quadrangular series ahead of the last World Cup, but couldn’t make it to the tournament. So now being here and playing for India in the World Cup is a very special moment for me,” said Parunika in an exclusive conversation with IANS before leaving for Kuala Lumpur.

India’s triumph in the inaugural Women’s U19 Asia Cup, which co-incidentally happened in Malaysia last month, is also a big confidence boost. “We know the conditions over there now. The Asia Cup win has definitely helped us to calm the chills we were having and now we’re just going to go there, play and do what we can do to our best.”

“Our coaches have been pretty clear about the roles and what they have told us is to just express ourselves there. When we are on the field, just do whatever we feel right and they are there to back us up and enjoy the game,” added Parunika, who now trains at RP Cricket Academy in Gargi College under Surjeet Verma and Ajay Verma.

Amongst the highs in her bubbling cricketing career, where she’s known for providing control, and bowling faster through the air with her variations, Parunika considers taking 5-26 on her debut for Delhi in the Senior Women’s One-Day Trophy match against Jharkhand on October 31, 2021 as her “fondest performance”.

“I was straightaway called for seniors from U19 and everyone was just telling me to calm down. They were like ‘Don’t be nervous and just bowl. Even if you get hit, we’ll just back you up’. Then I went there and I came out with my first five-wicket haul. Till then, I never got a five-wicket haul and it came after the Covid-19 pandemic,” she said.

Parunika’s success in her debut senior women’s game is all more remarkable given that she only took up cricket three years ago, and admitted to not liking the sport when she was into tennis, even before becoming a proper left-arm spinner.

“I used to go with him for my fitness sessions, and then from there, I started playing cricket doing the summer camps there. It raised my interest and then in 2018, I thought this is the game I want to play now for the upcoming years,” she added.

Parunika and Sudhir, a former age-group cricketer for Uttar Pradesh who also played university cricket, believed she’d excel as a batter despite her tennis background hindering her straight bat shots.

“The first women’s match I saw, Mithali Raj and Smriti Mandhana were batting together, and looked up to them as I was starting off as a batter. So my dad said, ‘You should look up to them and see what they are doing’. Seeing them play, I thought ‘Oh, girls play like this too’ as before then, I seriously had no idea about cricket that time. After I shifted to cricket, I was like, ‘Oh girls play like this as well’.”

Later, she switched to medium-pace bowling, but one day, she unexpectedly started bowling left-arm spin. “One day it was raining. So we were not allowed to bowl medium-pace. I thought that, okay, I’ll just bowl spin only then.”

“Then I think I was bowling well and my father saw it and he was like, ‘You have to bowl spin now’. I was like, okay, and that’s where my spin bowling came into picture. As soon as I started being a spinner, I saw Daniel Vettori and he has always been my idol. I really look up to him now.”

Named as a standby for Delhi’s U23 team, Parunika made her U19 debut in 2019/20, just before Covid-19 came, and became the seventh leading wicket-taker in the one-day tournament. Post-pandemic, Parunika became the second-highest wicket-taker in the 2021/22 Senior Women’s One-Day Trophy with 14 scalps – tied with three more bowlers on the list.

In the next season, Parunika became the leading wicket-taker of the Senior Women’s One-Day Trophy with 21 scalps and was also the top wicket-taker for North Zone winning the subsequent zonal tournament. Parunika’s excellent performances led her to be roped in by the Gujarat Giants for the inaugural 2023 Women’s Premier League (WPL) season.

Parunika confessed she felt star-struck to be in the dressing room alongside prominent Indian and foreign players. “The only thing I planned to do there was learn everything from them, like what and how they eat, how they do things and how they’re going to play a match, their schedules and everything. There I just did this only and I was very satisfied with that.”

Nooshin Al Khadeer, formerly the team’s bowling coach and currently the head coach of India U19, was acquainted with Parunika. However, Parunika was more keen to meet Mithali, whom she admired since her childhood.

“I told my coaches that I want to meet and talk to Mithali mam because I idolised her. Then she came for the first day of practice, and said, ‘Oh, hi Parunika, you’re the left-hand spinner, right?’ I said, ‘Yes, ma’am’. I was so happy from inside that she knew my name and what I do in cricket. As soon as I got back to my room, I called my dad and told him ‘You know, Mithali mam knows me’.”

Despite her team finishing last in WPL 2023, Parunika gained invaluable experience in managing pressure and controlling her nerves.

“I had never seen so many people watching and cheering for a women’s game. Whenever we used to have a match against Mumbai Indians, only the Mumbai supporters were there filling the stadium. So it was very nice to see people cheering, but we as a team were calming our nerves, playing there and showing what we could do. WPL has brought a different change in Indian players.”

The sadness of not being a part of the last India U19 batch, as they lifted the glittering World Cup trophy in 2023, also taught Parunika about ‘focusing more on the controllables and what she can do the best for the team’ now in the upcoming tournament.

In the U19 Women’s Asia Cup, Parunika picked nine wickets and was the second-highest wicket-taker in the tournament behind fellow left-arm spinner Aayushi Shukla’s ten scalps. Much of India’s success will rely on the left-arm spin quarter of Parunika, Aayushi, Sonam Yadav (the 2023 World Cup winner), and Vaishnavi Sharma, to befuddle and dominate opposing batsmen throughout the tournament.

“All of us are very chill about picking wickets. Whoever was playing, we were like, ‘Oh, now it’s your day’. There was a day where the three of us got four wickets one by one. So it’s like all of us were just waiting when the other one is getting wickets. So now we have four left-arm spinners, and all of us were just talking like ‘One match each and we’re going to perform in one match each’, so that we all are there in the game.”

Aside from cricket, Parunika said sleeping is one of her favourite hobbies now as it helps her recover after playing lots of cricket. When not sleeping, she goes out with her friends' gang to just chill. She doesn’t have much pressure of studies as compared to other 12th graders, as her family has said ‘Just learn how much you know that you can pass now and then you leave it’.

If India goes all the way to win their second U19 Women’s T20 World Cup title on February 2, Parunika will feel fulfilled about continuing a legacy of the team being the best U19 women’s side in the cricketing world, and spark greater interest in the sport amongst fans back home.

Aside from cricket, Parunika said sleeping is one of her favourite hobbies now as it helps her recover after playing lots of cricket. When not sleeping, she goes out with her friends' gang to just chill. She doesn’t have much pressure of studies as compared to other 12th graders, as her family has said ‘Just learn how much you know that you can pass now and then you leave it’.

Article Source: IANS