How a mother’s failed dream spurred rise of Wayanad as nursery for women’s cricket

“When my girl failed the trials, Wayanad did not person a territory team. My girl was a wanderer of sorts, turning up for antithetic districts, and frankincense ne'er got a existent accidental to explicit her skills. So we decided to signifier a squad for our district,” recollects Elsamma, a just-retired carnal acquisition teacher from the Mananthavady Government Vocational Higher Secondary School successful Wayanad who erstwhile represented her assemblage cricket team.

“I called up the relation secretary, Nazar Machan, who readily acknowledged the request for a team. But the bigger situation was to represent one. There was conscionable my girl and her friend. Suddenly I thought, wherefore not bash a enactment proceedings among the children successful school, adjacent though I knew they seldom played cricket,” says Elsamma.

Wayanad past didn’t person a decent ground, fto unsocial a turf wicket. Half the year, the district, comprising mostly tribals and migrants from Central Kerala, battled floods and landslides. “Here, radical person nary clip to ticker sports. The boys play a small spot of volleyball oregon football. But the superior ambition is to physique a livelihood, business, farming oregon a authorities job,” she says. Women are usually joined disconnected erstwhile they crook 18. Even the past Census of 2011 puts the pistillate literacy complaint successful the territory astatine 80.80%, acold little than the authorities mean of 92.07%.

It was to this milieu that Elsamma introduced cricket. There were doubters, but she paid them small attention. She stifles her laughter erstwhile she recalls the archetypal trials successful the school’s room garden. “Some of them were holding the bat for the archetypal time, immoderate of them had ne'er seen a cricket ball, oregon adjacent watched a crippled of cricket. Many didn’t cognize the rules. I was conscionable looking for carnal traits, whether they had hand-eye coordination, bully scope and height, a beardown physique. Somehow, I chose 14-15 players,” she recounts.

Needless to say, the squad mislaid each the games successful the archetypal inter-district tournament. But the room plot of the schoolhouse was repurposed into a tiny cricket ground, Elsamma and her girl bought a mates of cricketing gears for the school, and evenings successful the backyard of the Mananthavady schoolhouse were filled with squeaky appeals and frantic thuds of leather connected wood.

“Still, parents had to beryllium cajoled to nonstop their daughters for tournaments successful distant places. But I made them alert of the game’s imaginable to alteration their lives. In the aboriginal days, we utilized to conscionable each their expenses, including buying clothes, arsenic astir of them came from humble backgrounds,” she says.

But gradually, arsenic they started winning the unusual games – and getting grace marks for exams – much girls came streaming in. Elsamma kept her eyes unfastened for caller talent.

Minnu Mani, the archetypal pistillate from Kerala to play for the country, considers Elsamma a mother-like fig (Sportzpics)

It was past that Minnu Mani, the archetypal cricketer from the authorities to play for the country, walked in. “When I archetypal saw her, she was 12 oregon 13. She was afloat into athletics, similar sprinting and throwing. But the infinitesimal I saw her, I thought she had the goods to beryllium a cricketer. She was unfastened to it and her parents adjacent much so,” she says.

Minnu considers Elsamma a mother-like figure. “I retrieve however she virtually dragged maine to my archetypal enactment trials. I was a shy miss then, but she gave maine a batch of courage. She took attraction of maine similar a parent would,” the cricketer says.

Sajana, too, credits Elsamma for altering her vocation path. “In my teenage years, I utilized to play a batch of games and wanted to prosecute athletics. But past she saw immoderate spark successful maine and convinced maine to prosecute cricket,” she erstwhile told this newspaper.

Before Sajana near for the World Cup, she had called Elsamma to question her blessings. “She asked maine if I would ticker her games. I told her I person ne'er missed a azygous crippled of my students, adjacent if it is telecast connected the astir random streaming site,” she says.

Last year, she went to Bengaluru to ticker Minnu and Sajana playing connected other sides. Like a mother, she says, she gets tense and nervous. “That’s however mothers are. And to me, each subordinate that I person coached is not a player, but my daughter. That is possibly the crushed parents didn’t hesitate to nonstop them with maine to antithetic places,” she says.