CHENNAI: Friday morning was just another day at Adoni, a municipality of 38.16 sq. km. in Kurnool district, Andhra Pradesh. But it all changed when the BCCI announced the India squad for the upcoming T20I series against Australia women, which begins on December 9 in Mumbai. Celebrations broke as the word spread. Anjali Sarvani had earned her maiden India call-up.
The reactions and celebrations do not come as a surprise. Anjali was among the first women to take up cricket in Adoni around 2009. As much as she enjoyed playing gully cricket, it was not her first choice of sport back then. “I was a 100m sprinter and very much interested in athletics. One day when I was training, some of the Kurnool District Cricket Association officials saw me and asked if I would be interested in attending a cricket camp. I wasn’t, mainly because I have been working in athletics for a while at that point and wanted to focus on that. But they spoke to my parents and my father convinced me to give it a go and see what happens,” said Anjali.
She did well when in the one-month camp and then attended the selection trials. It was then she came under the wings of Venkatesh, who was the physical education teacher at Milton Grammar English Medium School. Being a sprinter, fast bowling became a natural choice for her. She learnt the ropes quickly, but the journey wasn’t easy. She used to stay on the ground all the time: from 6 AM to 10.30-11 AM in the morning and then from 3 to 6.30-7 in the evening. “And then I attended the camp in the Andhra women’s academy in Guntur. We used to practice 8 hours a day. It was exhausting. I was very young. It was very difficult to adjust to a different place early on,” she added.
While she took on the challenges of the sport head-on, there were struggles off the field as well. Born in a middle-class family, it wasn’t easy in the early years to take up an elite sport like cricket. “Initially we struggled a lot,” said Ramana Rao, Anjali's father. “It was costly. So many people helped. Our friends, family, and her school especially. When she took up cricket, they waived the fees. Everybody wanted to see her to succeed. Everybody wanted her to play for India. It is her dream and our dream also,” said Rao, who is a teacher at the government school in Nagaruru village.
At one point, to focus on her cricket, Anjali, her mother, and her younger brother shifted to Hyderabad while her father continued to stay in Adoni. With a family filled with sportspeople — Anjali’s father, grandfather, and uncles all have played some sport or other at the district/university level – they made sure they did everything in their power for Anjali to take up the professional sport.
She rose through the ranks in Andhra cricket rapidly and even made it to the India B side in quadrangular series featuring India A, Bangladesh and Thailand. But the real turnaround came when the pandemic broke. In the 2019-20 senior one-dayers, she took 20 wickets in seven matches for Andhra and was on a roll. But when it was cut short due to Covid, she was devastated. It was then she got a call-up from Railways to join them.
Having been a senior player even at a young age in Andhra, being a junior in a team filled with Indian internationals freed her up. She realised that she could learn what she can improve. She spent a lot of time working on her fitness. And with head coach Nooshin Al Khadeer, Anjali worked on the areas where she could bowl to trouble the batters with her angle and swing.
“I was working on my spots, which will be difficult for the batters to drive, That is a major development. Because of her (Nooshin), I improved my line and length. She was the one who gave me ideas of where to bowl with the new ball and what we can do with the old ball. I think somewhere around the start of the senior T20, I got the confidence which I carried forward,” said Anjali.
And the results are there to see. Since the start of the 2022-23 domestic season, Anjali has taken 30 wickets at an average of 9.40, playing a vital role in two title-winning campaigns, one each for Railways and Central Zone. She was the top wicket-taker in both the senior T20 (17 scalps, including a 3/6 in the final) and the senior inter-zonal T20 (joint-highest with Rashi Kanojia).
After years of hard work and consistent performances this season, Anjali has now moved one step up in the ladder, earning her maiden call-up for the Indian team. The dream has finally come true, not just for her but for Adoni. And she knows it too.
“It is a proud moment for me because coming from a very small place like Adoni, playing for India is not an easy thing. More than playing, making it to the Indian team in itself means so much,” she said.
Whether she gets to play in the five-match T20I series or not, the celebrations in the city are likely to continue for the fact that she will be in the India dressing room throughout the series.