In the lead-up to the 2023 T20 World Cup, off the 19 wickets Renuka Singh Thakur had taken in her short T20I career, 16 had come in the powerplay. She was the new ball wicket-taker. That was the reputation she had built over the past 12 months. Despite the struggles on surfaces that did not have much assistance, she was India’s first-choice seamer.
When they wanted to play only two seamers, they had preferred her since the start of the World Cup with Pooja Vastrakar for company. However, in the first couple of games played in Cape Town, Renuka did not get much help from the surface and had just one wicket to show.
However, unlike the home series against Australia, the 27-year-old ensured that she did not give away much either. 0/24 & 1/22. How did she do that? She had stuck to her basics as her coach Pawan Sen had told her, kept the lines and lengths right.
Coming into the game against England, with overnight rain and the pitch having something for the fast bowlers, India opted to play three pacers with Shikha Pandey playing her first match of the tournament. Having not made a mark on surfaces that weren’t helping, it was the moment Renuka was waiting for. And she was the one who started the proceedings for India with the wind blowing in her favour — literally, from her left to right.
She started the first over with her typical wide off the crease, angled in delivery, trapping Sophia Dunkley on the pads. Straight away they went for an appeal, but it was going down. The next ball was a single. On the third, Danni Wyatt, looking for the angled-in delivery, played inside the line of the ball, but Renuka kept it straight as the ball held its line, took the edge, and flew past Richa Ghosh before the teenager plucked a one-handed stunner.
The new batter, Alice Capsey, immediately walked down to adjust, but soon enough Ghosh came to the stumps. In her next over, Renuka stuck to the plan, and went wide off the crease, trying to swing it in. Not wanting to leave the crease, Capsey was too early into the shot and lost her stumps. 14 balls later, cut-copy-paste of what had happened with a typical backing-away Dunkley; Renuka had three wickets to show in the powerplay and England were 29/3.
But that was that. Skipper Heather Knight and Natalie Sciver-Brunt took charge from thereon as they manoeuvred the spinners while playing out the pacers, whom India did not bowl much in the death; only one over of pace in the last five overs. Considering Natalie (52) and Amy Jones (40 off 27) went after the spinners in the last few overs, it meant England made 151/7, but not before Renuka took a couple more wickets in the last over, finishing with 5/15 —.best figures by an Indian, man or woman, in T20 World Cups. Despite the quick start in the chase — Smriti Mandhana scored a fifty, Ghosh gave England a scare — it was a bit too much for India as they fell short by 11 runs.
Speaking after the match, Renuka said that the bowling coach Troy Cooley and she were working on some variations to make sure she was not predictable. “Everybody knows I swing the ball back in. I spoke with him and we practiced wobble seam, outswing, and slower one and it all helped me take wickets today. I enjoy talking with him, but when I didn’t get wickets, I went back and worked with him. Today, he told us before the match that the wicket is good and that if we hit the right areas, we’ll be able to take wickets and that is exactly what happened,” she said.
Brief scores: England 151/7 in 20 ovs (Natalie 50, Jones 40, Renuka 5/15) bt India 140/5 in 20 ovs (Mandhana 52, Ghosh 47 n.o; Glenn 2/27).
