When she started playing cricket at 13, Ananya Upendran knew to shoot right for the stars, maybe even a little beyond. “As a kid, my ambition was to play for the Australian Men’s team one day,” she says with a giggle. Maybe that is why, then, the child in her has not faded away even at 25, as she says, “I felt like Superman when I wore the blue jersey for the first time in 2015. I got to play a practice match with the New Zealand team as part of the India A Cricket team.”
In 2017’s Senior Women’s Cricket, Super League T20, Ananya displayed a stellar performance as part of the Hyderabad team in their win against West Bengal. Primarily a bowler, Ananya not only took two wickets in the first two balls that she bowled, but also scored 35 runs, one of the highest in the match. About the entire experience, Ananya says, “We lost against the Railways team, 90 per cent of which consists of the Indian players, including Mithali Raj. It was a high scoring game and we lost just by 9 runs. That was the only time our team even scored beyond 130, so despite the loss, our morale shot up. We also lost to MP by nine runs, so the situation was such that we had to win every match from then on, or go home. Only six of us were fully fit as our captain and our best player was badly injured and the rest were down with fever. So, the six of us tried to put in double the effort. Until this point, I was bowling pretty well but I was not able to take many runs. In this match, I pushed myself as much as possible, and it finally did it.”
Ananya’s biggest inspiration was her late grandfather who was a huge Cricket fanatic. “He used to maintain diaries to record India’s score and to keep track of the players. It was because of him that I started watching the game and I used to play on the terrace with my dad. I had a friend in school, who was also a huge cricket fan, and her father found a camp in Keys High School. The coach was Dorai Raj, Mithali Raj’s father. I joined in 2004, and I haven’t looked back since.”
Ananya gives all the credit to her parents, who helped her throughout, and her coaches. Ask her about the future plans, and she is very clear “I want to win the State Championship as a Hyderabad player,” she says.
