CHENNAI: Moments after India beat Australia in the first of the three T20Is at the Sydney Cricket Ground earlier this year, Shreyanka Patil found herself wandering into the dressing room alone. At least she thought she was.
The rain-interrupted match ended in the favour of the visitors (21 runs (DLS method)), but Patil, on her comeback, had gone for 24 runs in two overs. After being out of the team for more than a year due to injuries, she had landed in Australia filled with hopes of a fairytale return. For her, it had felt like making her India debut all over again. The nerves were there, wearing the blue clothing again, but having done the hard yards and ticked all the boxes in the training leading up to the first T20I, she had hoped for things to go her way. When that did not happen, she did not know how to react.
Disturbed and heartbroken, she entered the dressing room not knowing Smriti Mandhana was there too.“When I went, I just saw Smriti and then I hugged her. And then tears started rolling down,” Patil recalled in a conversation with this daily after the South Africa tour.
As someone not afraid to be vulnerable, Patil wanted to let it all out. And in Mandhana, one of her close friends and Royal Challengers Bengaluru skipper, she found a shoulder to cry on. “She is someone who understands me very well. I cried in front of her. She was like ‘I'm proud of you that you're here (doing) what you love doing. I know you will win games for India. There is no doubt about it’. She kept saying such things which genuinely came from her heart,” she remembers.
Soon after, Patil became calm and moved on. It is one of the many things she had been consciously telling herself during her time away from the game. “Be happy and grateful that you're just back on the field, doing what you love doing. Whenever you are fit, in that mental space, just enjoy yourself. Results will come one day. You will get fifer one day. You might get hit for 50 runs on another. You have to understand and be okay to fail. You always don't get the success you want. Yes, you have to look forward to that but also understand the setbacks, failure, and get out of it as soon as possible.”
Telling yourself that is one thing. But practising is a completely different challenge. And that did not come easy, especially for someone who had seen nothing but success till the big injury setback in late 2024.
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From the time she came through the ranks in Karnataka cricket, Patil has been the golden-eyed star. The young off-spinning all-rounder who made one sit and up watch every time the ball left her hand. She moved up the ranks in India A, got picked by RCB in the 2023 Women’s Premier League, made her India debut later that year, won the title with RCB before going to her maiden T20 World Cup in 2024.
Then came the injuries, one after another every time she came close to playing again meant Patil was out of action between October 2024 and September 2025. With every setback, doubts and insecurities crept in. But in time, she made peace with the fact that she missed a season of WPL, and watched her teammates and friends lift the ODI World Cup trophy from afar. It helped that she had her close people around — from coach Arjun Dev to Mandhana, Jemimah Rodrigues, Arundhati Reddy, Kanika Ahuja and Renuka Singh Thakur — and she also got to interact with some of the male cricketers at the BCCI Centre of Excellence. In empathising with their journeys, Patil started to reflect on her own cricket, her limits, skills, strengths and how to react in certain situations and why she doesn’t have to do everything all at once.
“Cricket, I think more or less, I have kept it very similar to what I was doing before the injury phase because that has given me a lot of success. When you ask me about mentally, I think I am still wanting to be a little more calmer under pressure. Obviously, the decision making shouldn't go wrong. You can't be 100 per cent. Now, if I am 40 per cent, can I get to 70 per cent? That's again your personal choice, how badly you want it. Sometimes, I don't feel like doing it. But if you have to be the greatest all-rounder, you have to push in that extra yard. Mentally again, (Arjun) sir keeps putting me under pressure. Then, how do I react? The more mistakes, the more errors you make, then at the end of the day, I will be like, ‘oh shit, I shouldn't have done that’. In anger, I may end up bowling a yorker when I had to bowl an off-spinning delivery. These are the things which you will only understand. You have trained your mind and body so much that at the end of the day, you will find an answer.”
She acknowledged that the long injury lay-off has also helped her understand her body better, when to push herself, when not to and what she needed to do to keep delivering on the field while taking care of herself better. “When I was younger, like one or two years back, I never used to understand my body. Even if I have small niggles, I was like, I will push myself. But I never understood back then because I never had gone through that phase. Now, I'm able to understand my own body, which is, again, a very trickier part. The sooner you understand your body, your mind, you would have confidence over your body. If my body is not feeling up for today's session, don't try to do quantity. Do quality. If I'm playing 100 balls a day, maybe play 20-30 good balls and then come do your recovery. You just want to do everything, be it your pool session, be it your ice bath, whatever recovery which helps for you, be it your nutrition, diet, water intake. I still want to win games, take wickets or score those crucial 10-15 runs. But these are the small things I didn't do back then. Now, I am willing to change and get better at it.”
Despite everything she did and all the work she had put in, doubts did creep in. And when they did, she had her inner circle of people to support her through the highs and lows. “I wouldn't have known the value of friends if I wouldn't have gone through the injury phase. Because it felt like they badly wanted me back on the field. Not by saying, just showing their love in whatever capacity they could. Kanika was constantly calling me. She came here for a couple of days, checking on me. It just feels like a big family where everyone wants good for me. Even if your parents are not travelling, you know that your core people are travelling with you. You don't have to think twice before going to them. You can just walk up and say, this is it. I'm feeling a little thing. You can go to their room anytime. And also, it's not only about positive things. If I've done wrong, I like someone who says you have done wrong. And that's something which I love about these people.”
During her time away from the game, she also worked toward setting up The SP31 Foundation, a non-profit initiative which hit the ground running in March this year. Any income that comes from her official fragrance line, 317, would go towards the Super She programme which is focused on helping young female cricketers who have immense talent but lack the proper gear, coaching, or financial resources to chase their goals.
“This is my personal thing. When Arjun sir asked me to make a vision board a few years ago, among other things including getting my India cap, I had a small thing that said academy for the underprivileged. I was like, I have to do it no matter what. I may not have had the vocabulary for it, but I knew I wanted to do something good for people who can't afford it. We have so much talent in India. So many people want to pick up a bat or ball, especially after the 2017 World Cup. We knew that we can make a career out of the sport. So many others who can't afford the sport will have the same dream or maybe more than what we are all dreaming. I just want to, in whatever capacity I can, do something which will give me happiness personally. And in that, if someone, one or two does well, why not? I'll be the happiest person if I could help that one or two people,” the 24-year-old explained.
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The time away has helped Patil come back as a mature — mentally and emotionally — athlete. During one of the bus rides after the first T20I Down Under, Patil was in tears talking to her coach Arjun. Throughout the ride, she was discussing her visualisation, why things are not working and the ball wasn’t coming out of her hand like the way it used to. Then she was left out of the playing XI for the second T20I in Canberra and Australia levelled the T20Is 1-1.
Cut to Adelaide, Patil was desperate to do something special. She stepped onto the field, closed her eyes and relived the iconic moments featuring Rahul Dravid and Virat Kohli at The Adelaide Oval. She wanted to create a memory like that for herself and experience what it is like to beat Australia in Australia.
“I'm someone who loves to bowl about five-six overs before the game. But that day with three overs, I felt so good. I dropped the ball. Marked my run-up. I felt like I was in a different world. And then when I bowled that first ball, I was like, ‘Shrey is back’. It's not like I got three wickets so I can sit down and tell, oh, just because she bowled well she's saying that. But honestly, this was my feeling that when I bowled that first ball, when it came out of my hand, I had that big smile on my face. Nobody is going to stop me today. I'm going to win this game no matter what,” recalled Patil. And she did just that, taking 3/22 including the wickets of Georgia Voll, Ellyse Perry and Annabel Sutherland after Mandhana’s 82 helped India get to 176/6. India women beat Australia by 17 runs to win a T20I series Down Under for the first time in a decade.
Though the South Africa tour did not go as they would have liked, now India are in England for the Women’s T20 World Cup. For Patil, it will be her second World Cup after the disappointing early exit in 2024. “I think we did well in patches, but we couldn't continue the winning streak. Unfortunately, we couldn't make it to the semis, but there was still learning because we kind of wanted to fight back in whatever capacity we could. And then we came out after that, I think the ODI World Cup went really well for us. When it really mattered, we kind of pulled it off. And the whole of India is so proud of that team. We all got to know how it feels like to lift a World Cup. And whoever has lifted that World Cup will have that energy. We were sitting and watching from home, and we also felt it. If we want to feel that feeling, we have to do it again. We want to lift the World Cup as many times as possible. Being a cricketer, you have dreamt of lifting as many World Cups as possible. Personally for me, I want to be an impactful player, be it batting, bowling, fielding. I know I have got very little batting phases in WPL. But I would love to try and apply that when I go and play the games in England. I'm just prepping myself mentally, physically, getting stronger, understanding the game better, and what the opponents are doing. I feel I can give my best. Even if I have two bad games, I know how to come back. I think this time I am very well prepared. It's been a while since I wore that World Cup jersey. It will be an amazing feeling and I just can't wait to go there and start playing.”
On July 5, 2025, Patil, while on a Wimbledon tour, visited the Lord’s and posted a picture on Instagram with a caption that read: 'Exactly one year from now, I will hopefully be standing on this Lord’s balcony with the T20 World Cup!' Ask her if she has seen herself playing the final, the 24-year-old quickly intervenes. “Not just playing the final, I visualised lifting the trophy in the Lord's balcony, how it happened in 1983. I just want to recreate that. I went for a Lord's tour (last year) and then I just posted about an imaginary trophy-like thing. Since then, I have had a different feeling. I'm just visualising myself doing well, the team doing well, the team lifting the trophy. I am someone who starts match-to-match when the tournaments get closer. Till then, I visualise the final lifting the trophy, the moment of winning. I have just been visualising lifting the trophy, manifesting it day in and day out. I'm raring to go and lift the trophy for the first time,” she said with a wide-eyed smile.
The signs are there already. In the two warm-up matches, Patil has taken 4/36 and 2/29, putting the team in positions of strength. Over the next month or so, expect the all-rounder to continue doing the same and give her everything to make the dream of becoming a World Champion come true.