MUMBAI: Behind the Bangladesh cricket team’s maiden Women’s Asia Cup T20 title, three Indians — including two from Maharashtra — have toiled hard away from the spotlight. Bangladesh cricket team’s head coach Anju Jain, assistant coach Devika Palshikar and physio Anuja Dalvi-Pandit are credited with grooming the Bangladesh cricket team.
Devika’s love for cricket began with gulli cricket in Pune. What started in 1999 took her to lead the Assam team and to play for the Air India team apart from Team India. In 2009, she took over as a coach for the Assam team and then has groomed Mumbai, Goa and Maharashtra teams. She was also assistant coach for the Indian team in 2014-15. “Coaching is 24x7 job and you’ve to constantly think of everybody in the team. You are constantly living cricket when you are a coach,” she says, comparing between being a player and a coach.
Due to concerns regarding safety and communication, she was a bit hesitant to take over the responsibility of the Bangladesh team. “Fortunately apart from some hurdles in following my strict vegetarian diet, there were no problems at all.”
“You have best team when you are coaching an international team. They know their own strengths and weaknesses. What we did with the team is that we devised our strategies taking into consideration the strengths of team members. That helped them execute the strategies, and their game considerably improved within two months.”
Bangladesh has just won series against Ireland and is now eyeing the T20 World Cup qualifiers that are starting in Netherlands from July 3.
Team physio Anuja graduated in physiotherapy from the Mumbai’s KEM hospital and did a specialization in musculoskeletal and sports physiotherapy from an Australian university.
Her journey in cricket began in 2009 which led her to work with experts such as Ashish Kaushik, Paul Close and John Gloster. Anuja has her own clinics in Mumbai and has recently founded PhysioConcepts Education to spread the knowledge of the subject in India. “My family has no connection with either sports, or medicine, or entrepreneurship. My mother always supported me in my key decisions,” she says.
Her brother Satej Dalvi and her husband Niranjan Pandit are also into cricket.
“It has been special to be a part of the Bangladesh cricket history. It is satisfying to see the respect the girls have received. There is much satisfaction in seeing lives transforming in front of you courtesy cricket.”