The very first time that T20 cricket was included in The International Blind Sports Federation (IBSA) World Games in 2023, the newly-formed Indian women’s team took the field by storm. Winning every match in the league stage, the women in blue defeated Australia by nine wickets. “When we won, I had no words. I was so proud that I was representing India – as children, we would look at cricketers and wonder when it would be us,” remembers Deepika TC, a player from Karnataka. Now, a documentary film Dekh Le India by directors Shanthi Mohan and Mukund Moorthy, taking us through these extraordinary women’s journeys, will be screened at Samarthanam Art Centre, HSR Layout, on Friday.
As Mohan notes, mainstream audiences are largely unaware of blind sports – part of the reason they chose this subject. “Women in general find it tough to make their mark and here, we have girls who are not only blind but come from tough socio-economic backgrounds who are trying to play cricket. [It is] a popular sport in India, but hardly anyone knows about blind cricket.”
Varsha U, another Karnataka player lead the team as the captain. With players from all over India, Varsha recalls cultural barriers as a crucial challenge to overcome. She says, “Initially, the language and culture were so different that we didn’t understand each other. In the first bilateral series with Nepal, coordination was a problem and we lost the game. But we slowly grew close and learnt to understand each other.”
The film, which begins at this tense moment of loss, gives an inside look into the team’s dynamics as they figure out how to work together. “After they lose to India, they regroup and discover the reasons they are struggling. In between this and their final win, we also cover the girls’ backstories – one is from a tribal village from Odisha, one from Andhra, another from a family of fishermen. Boys don’t come out of these villages, but these girls have, despite being blind”, explains Moorthy, adding, “I found it inspiring that in our interview, they all said, ‘We don’t need pity or sympathy – just give us an opportunity.”
Both Varsha and Deepika were unaware of blind cricket’s intricacies until they came across selection games at the district level. “As a child, I was interested in all sports. Around Class 8 or 9, my sight worsened and exam pressure increased so I stopped playing cricket. In PU, I came across the district-level cricket selection camp – there was no national or Karnataka team for women back then – seeing how cricket was being played there made me so happy,” recalls Varsha.
Since the world games, while Varsha working and taking a break from cricket, Deepika has become the captain of the Karnataka team. She is currently training for the first women’s cricket world cup for the blind, set to start this November. She says she’s been training differently, “Back then, I was a bit lazy (laughs) but with the world cup coming up, I start net practice at 4am, then the gym at 9am, and back to the ground at 4pm!”
Cricket for the blind includes a lot of different accommodations like a ball containing bells to make the game playable to those who are completely blind (B1 players), partially blind (B2 players) and partially sighted (B3 players). “After the ball has been pitched, we hear it rolling towards us, sense whether it is coming from the off-side, leg side or the centre and hit it in a fraction of a second. There is a high chance of dot balls in B1 so our whole attention is on the sound of the ball,” Varsha, a B1 player, explains.