Here is an excerpt from a chapter of the book entitled, Lazy Girl’s Long Innings
By Suprita Das
When Jhulan Goswami took her first international wicket in Chennai in the year 2000, the fielder slipped
who took the catch to return England’s Caroline Atkins was as old as Jhulan. Mithali Raj, 19, was the vice-captain of the Indian team at the time. By the time Jhulan played U-19 cricket for East Zone in 1999-2000, Mithali had already made it to the national team.
But unlike Jhulan, who had the huge task of convincing her family, especially her father, for Mithali
cricket had already been chosen as a career – by her father. Born to Indian Air Force Sergeant S. Dorai Raj and Leela Raj in Jodhpur, where her father was last stationed, Mithali grew up in a joint family in Hyderabad.
The Raj’s were like most orthodox Tamil families where daughters were trained in some form of classical song or dance. Mithali was in grade three at Keyes High School for Girls when she decided to enroll in Bharatanatyam classes. But little did she know that her school weekday dance-on-weekend routine would end even before she finished grade school.
At the time, Mithali accompanied her older brother, Mithun, for his cricket training at St. John’s Academy in Secunderabad, often taking her homework to the ground. At the boys’ camp where she wasn’t allowed to play, she threw the ball back when it came to her. But she soon got bored and ended up hitting a few balls in the nets when the boys finished their session. That’s how Mithali says her cricketing journey started.
But in the account of her father, Dorai Raj, ‘Mithali was a lazy girl’, who cried every morning when she woke up early. So, to get her into some kind of healthy routine and disciplined lifestyle, Dorai Raj started taking her to his son’s cricket lessons. A sleepy Mithali would jump on the carrier of her father’s motorcycle at 5:30 am to be at the cricket pitch.
Coach Jyothi Prasad, who would be teaching the boys and happened to be a friend of Dorai Raj, suggested that Mithali might as well learn the game since she would come to the ground anyway. The way she moved her feet and stepped forward as she lowered her club in an arc convinced Prasad that the young girl had potential. Dorai Raj agreed and Mithali’s life changed from that moment on.
At the age of nine she got her first bat, albeit a small one, from Prasad, who started teaching her the basics in an informal way – she mastered the ropes in no time. Prasad told Raj Senior to focus on letting his daughter play cricket, not his son, because there was too much competition between the boys.
Being the only girl in the coaching camp had its perks. Mithali was allowed to bat first and that piqued her some interest. On Prasad’s advice, Raj Mithali enrolled in the cricket team at Keyes High School, where Sampath Kumar, a respected coach who previously taught in Purnima Rau, gave the girls cricket after class. Kumar was also in charge of two age group teams in Hyderabad.
Just three months after training her, Kumar realized that Mithali was an exceptional talent. She took difficult things relatively easily, and he had no doubts that she would one day represent the country. He even said she would be playing for India by the time she turned fourteen. Of course, Mithali and her parents were pretty sure he was joking, but Kumar was dead serious. He aimed for the stars, but he didn’t think he was overly ambitious.
Coach Sampath Kumar has never set the bar low. And he didn’t want Mithali to focus only on his studies or get lost
between books. As an ordinary South Indian family, the Rajs had a few obvious career choices for their daughter – medicine or engineering. Anything else would have been too adventurous.
However, they decided to take a plunge. Kumar agreed to teach Mithali in exchange for the promise that her parents would have her born anytime he asked. While working on her shot-making and footwork with Kumar, it was the steps during the weekend Bharatanatyam classes that were Mithali’s heart. The lazy child, as her father claims, suddenly made the young girl so busy that twenty hours didn’t seem enough.
Childhood, as well as life, would never become normal for her from then on. At one point, cricket training became so strict that the Bharatanatyam had to be sacrificed. The “military life” as Mithali describes it started with getting up at 5am, leaving for the ground, located in the school building itself, at 5.30am. Cricket coaching continued from 6-8pm, after which Mithali changed clothes and had breakfast there herself as school started at 8:30am
When school was over and she had eaten a meal her mother had brought, it was time to hit the nets. By the time she was done, it was already past seven in the evening. In all of this, her mother’s role was the most difficult. Leela Raj toiled day in and day out, but quietly did her job for years.
To ensure that Mithali ate nutritious food, she was always in the kitchen before the crack of dawn. She prepared Mithali’s breakfast, lunch, and snack, and made sure Mithali wasn’t digging into a packet of chips or sipping a cold drink. She channeled every bit of energy she had into Mithali’s ten-year-old mind and body. If there was one reason Mithali’s grades never dropped in school, it was because of her mother. Her homework was always done, just not in her own handwriting.
Soon cricket began to find its way beyond the school grounds. Cricket-crazy Dorai Raj had now become obsessed
with his daughter’s future at stake. So much so that cricket also became a part of table conversations. Mithali didn’t really have a normal childhood. She had no friends of her own, didn’t do the kind of things girls her age did, didn’t go to social gatherings, and didn’t even have time for sibling rivalry. Mithun would fall fast asleep if Mithali started her day at 5am and by the time she finished between 10.30pm and 11pm, he would already be in bed.
When the teenage years started, Mithali’s life revolved around cricket 24/7. Dealing with teenage pains, believing her peers cared about her more than anyone in the world, sneaking a Mills & Boon novel into bed, taking stacking classes, or trying on her first lipstick—Mithali has no such memories.
All she knew was that she wanted to grow old very quickly.
(The following excerpt is published with permission from HarperCollins Publishers, India. Written by Suprita Das, the paperback of Free Hit: The Story of Women’s Cricket in India costs Rs 499.00)