CHENNAI: In this day and age of professional sports, any time history is created, there are a slew of measures, including long-term planning and a proper system, that usually go into it. The triumphant tale of Girls in Blue that lifted the inaugural ICC U19 Women’s T20 World Cup title is a testimony to such a meticulous planning. It’s the culmination of months and months of work done by the coaches and administrators at the National Cricket Academy.
Over the past 14 months, they have conducted several camps, starting with the Zonal in May-June, 2022, where players from different zones were shortlisted and shuffled into groups of 25 at different parts of the country before shortlisting the final squad comprising 25 cricketers for the main camp at the NCA in August. Once the domestic season began, there was the U19 T20 Trophy, followed by the Challengers, quadrangulars featuring India A, India B, Sri Lanka, and West Indies U19s, and bilateral series against the New Zealand Development squad. By the time the final squad was picked, the group of players had spent months together playing an ample amount of matches before getting on the flight to South Africa.
Shrabani Debnath, who was at the camp in the NCA after the challengers and India A team during quadrangulars and the bilaterals against NZ, sums up how it felt when she joined the camp in the NCA. “When I joined, it felt like everything was planned. It was all in place. And it was individualistic — skill-wise, fitness-wise and recovery-wise. How many matches they will play in the World Cup, how much they need to play now before that, it was all planned by the team,” Shrabani, who is with the Tripura women’s team as head coach, told this daily.
“The thing is it is better to make more mistakes before the main event so that you can learn. We needed to learn before the World Cup. Those matches and preparations everything was planned. Every day after every session we used to sit together with all the staff and talk about each player, and how much they bowled or threw, everything was monitored. And the results are there to see.”
Shrabani feels that there is a difference in the generation of the players that have come up as well. “The way the U19 girls are evolving now is very nice. If you look at three years ago I have done zonal camps, these players are on a different level. The way they play, think, and their smartness, it is way better. The players have developed because of the T20 format. They try shots and have to be fit. The batting coaches ask them to be fearless and bowlers try variations. And in U19, there are 15-year-olds, but we don’t treat them differently. They will be treated in the same mature way and the same is expected of them,” said Shrabani.
The former Tripura player also credits the way Nooshin Al Khadeer handled the team. While it was the first time she worked with her, Shrabani said, “She is very good at her job. She doesn’t talk too much, but knows how to get the best out of a player,” she said.
And behind all the work that has gone was the head of the NCA, VVS Laxman. Shrabani calls him the mastermind. “Whenever I spoke at the NCA with Apurva (Desai) sir and Rajeeb (Dutta) sir, I felt like he (Laxman) was the mastermind. He really supported us a lot. Organising all the camps and even during rains, we used to have sessions, something or other will keep happening. It all could not have happened without his planning,” Shrabani signed off.