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Rawal took her learnings from her first game and enhanced her showing in the second game against the Windies as he notched her first fifty-plus score and added to it with her a couple of wickets with the ball.
Pratika Rawal. (X)
Indian all-rounder Pratika Rawal, who made her international debut for the women in blue in the side’s thumping 211-run win over the touring West Indies women at Vadodara, has made a name for herself on the domestic cricketing circuits for her consistency and dedication to her craft.
Rawal took her learnings from her first game and enhanced her showing in the second game against the Windies as he notched her first fifty-plus score (76) and added to it with her a couple of wickets with the ball.
The 24-year-old, who also excelled academically in school in addition to being a quality cricketer, is the daughter of Pradeep, a BCCI-certified Level-II umpire of the Delhi and District Cricket Association.
Her father got her enrolled at the Rohtak Road Gymkhana Cricket Academy, under the aegis of veteran coach Sharvan Kumar, who has guided Indian seam stalwart Ishanth Sharma’s career, when she was all of 10 years of age.
“She was the first girl who trained at my academy. Before that, I would only work with boys, but when her father got her here, I thought, why not let her play as well,” Sharvan recollected.
Rawal proved to be a trailblazer as Sharvan revealed he went on to train three other girls who went on to represent their national teams.
“After her, three other girls from my academy went on to play international cricket – Priya Mishra, Simran Dil Bahadur and Nepal’s Puja Mahato,” he explained.
Prathika, who attended the Bal Bharati School in Rajender Nagar and also played basketball, was coveted by Modern School for what she could bring to their cricket team.
Modern approached her when she was in class nine, but Rawal wasn’t particular about shifting schools and Sharvan offered her a way to get out of the advance by flagging the fees as a factor. However, Modern were set on reinforcing their team with Rawal and decided to charge her just as must as she paid at Bal Bharati.
“Pratika was always a very talented girl, but I would keep telling her to work harder,” he added.
“But the Modern School was determined to bring her on board, and they were open to enrol her at the same fee as that of Bal Bharati because they knew she would add a lot of value to their cricket team,”
While she kept moving from strength to strength on the cricket field, her scores in academic examinations did not lag behind either as she managed to record 92.5 per cent in her CBSE class 12 examinations.
Her performances on the field attracted attention and she made it to the Delhi’s age-category side and made an incredible 161-run knock off just 155 deliveries in her debut year of 2021.
She managed to tally 522 runs in the subsequent season of List A cricket and added sheen with her 411 runs in the eventual campaign.
She received cricketing counsel and aid from former players Dipti Dhyani and Dishant Yagnik, who helped her hone her abilities.
“When I saw Pratika for the first time, I realised she was an incredible talent. But her game was more dominant on the leg side,” Yagnik said.
“We corrected her batting grip and then worked on the balance of the batting. So, in a combination of grip and balancing, she could hit long sixes,” Yagnik, the Rajasthan Royals assistant coach added.
“Before I met her, I heard she would only hit boundaries on the leg-side, so I tried to unlock her game on the off-side” Yagnik added.
“Right from the beginning, she played as an opener, but as and when the team required, she batted lower down the order and has also delivered,” Dhyani added.
“I keep telling her and my other players that the team should come first and they should always go out in the middle with a positive mindset,” she added.
“This is just the start for her, and she has lots to learn. Pratika has also gone through a lot of ups and downs in her career because there were times when she would not get games despite having talent. But she took things in her stride and bounced back,” Dhyani said.
