There was a moment in an Indian innings this week when Devika Vaidya, the debutant 19-year-old allrounder, made a quiet statement on how comfortable and aware she is on the field.
Shakera Selman, the West Indies pacer, returns for her final spell of their third One-Day International against India Women. Her first six overs with the new ball had gone for just five runs. Now in the 47th over, she and her captain want third man in place for Vaidya, who had helped Veda Krishnamurthy steer the innings so 200 looked a distinct possibility.
A fielder is duly summoned from across the ground. Vaidya is watching, plotting. She does a quick recon and takes guard. She knows her opponents are quick on the field, but she sees the gaps. The next delivery is confidently dispatched over long-on for four.
It’s a routine boundary perhaps, but all cheek in how it scythes the fielders and unsettles the bowler’s plans. Even allowing for the fact that she had made her senior debut at 13, that is some remarkable assuredness for a teenager playing her maiden ODI.
It isn’t hard to see why she’s spoken about as one to watch.
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It wasn’t the first time in India blue for Vaidya. She had featured in the only Twenty20 International against South Africa Women on their 2014 tour, going for 30 runs in her three overs.
Then it had all been new to her. Walking into a team with legends like Jhulan Goswami and Mithali Raj, she barely knew anyone. Vaidya is polite, friendly and chatty – a teen who likes Ranbir Kapoor, photography and playing the guitar when her hands aren’t stiff from cricket – but she’s not the extrovert who’d walk up to someone and start a conversation. The initiation had been a tricky one.
She was more prepared for this West Indies series. A few years older, the experience of national camps where seniors became friends and her excellent domestic form had helped cultivate a confidence.
When she got her chance in the third match, the left-hander’s 45-ball 32 not out was full of textbook shots, quick thinking and selfless batting.
“I’ve been practising this,” she tells Wisden India after the game. “In the domestic season, I used to come down (the order) deliberately, because I knew that if I got a chance in the (India) team, it would be at No. 5 or 6. So I was well prepared, and mentally I was prepared. It was nothing new.”
Getting her cap from her idol, Raj, she soon found herself rebuilding the innings with Krishnamurthy, another batter she admires. As she says, “Veda’s an attacking player, Mithali plays on timing. And both score the same amount of runs and at the same strike rate.”
Krishnamurthy’s concerns about having to work with a debutant to lift the team from 103 for 4 were put to rest. “The first inside-out shot she (Vaidya) played, I was like ‘OK, she is here to play’. That’s when she gave me confidence,” said the older partner after the match.
The two went on to add a crucial 57 at over five an over. “I didn’t block myself, I didn’t try to play defensive because the team also needed runs. It was important for me to think about the team first,” says Vaidya. She worked at finding the gaps and rotating the strike. There’s pride, joy and satisfaction of a job well done.
Then, given a chance to bowl, she got the important wicket of Deandra Dottin with her second over of legspin.
According to her coach in Pune, Niranjan Godbole, it was a wicket she had wanted. “When we were practising, Dottin was the one she was plotting against,” he says.
“Mithali expected me to bowl dot balls more,” says Vaidya of the memo given to her. “I just had to contain, and give minimum runs.” Even getting smashed for a six and a four by Merissa Aguilleira didn’t faze her: “It was my mistake only, so I corrected it. I’d given her a full toss – of course they’d hit it out!” she adds, laughing at herself.
Nerves were never an issue, she claims. “When you come to this level, they (seniors) don’t need to tell you your responsibility, we should know.”
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Vaidya’s journey to the top levels of Indian women’s cricket started early at the age of seven, and with full backing from her parents – who were there in Vijayawada to witness the latest success of their only child.
Fascinated by the cricket she watched on television, she wanted to take it up, and the game was added to a busy schedule that already involved taekwondo in the evenings. “I used to do my homework in the two hours in the middle. It was well balanced,” she insists.
A natural right-hander, it so happened that she picked up the bat with the left as she learnt the game from her first coach, Atul Gaikwad. She also took up legspin on the advice of her coach. “When I was small, I used to like pace bowling. I used to bowl fast – I thought I was bowling fast! My sir told me my physique was not of a fast bowler’s so it’s better to become a spinner.
“But, I did not have that strength to reach the ball till 22 yards, so I started chucking. Offspin also you can chuck the ball, so he told me to try legspin to get that hand straight … At that age, it’s very easy to adjust. Later on, you start using your head, but at that age, nothing. Whatever you’re told, you have to listen,” she laughs.
By the age of 12, she was in the Maharashtra Under-19 team and the senior team a year later. “I used to understand nothing!” the laughter is back. “Before I could realise, I had started playing. At that age, you don’t understand what pressure is, so I played freely.”
Playing alongside the likes of Smriti Mandhana, another prodigy who at 20 is one of the best batters in the world, she made the strides up the ladder. The girl who loved chocolates and wolfed down half a bar by herself would grow into a dedicated cricketer who doesn’t give junk food a second look and won’t miss a day at the gym. The film Rockstar, which she’s watched too often to count, might be her only indulgence.
In 2014-15, she won the BCCI award for best junior woman cricketer. That season, she was the leading wicket-taker in the Inter-State T20 Competition, the leading run-getter with two hundreds and two fifties in the Inter-State One-Day Competition, and captained the Under-19 India Green in the Challenger Trophy. In 2015-16, her 258 runs and nine wickets in five matches stood out in the new Under-23 one-day competition, and she topped the list of wicket-takers in the inter-zonals at that level. This season, after two years with India Green, she graduated to the title-winning India Red side, and finally found time to give her class 12 exams.
That breakout 2014 year, she was out of the house playing cricket for “250-300 days” she estimates. That was the most she missed home and her friends. Otherwise she can manage, she says – she only misses her grandmother’s fish.
“Her attitude is her strength,” says Godbole, a former Maharashtra player and coach, of his charge. “She’s always positive. No matter what time I call her for practice, she’s there ten minutes early. She’s very keen, she thinks about the game. Maybe overthinking might be her weakness.”
Both coach and charge know her game is best built on technique rather than big-hitting. “She’s small-built [but] she knows her game, she knows her strength. She’ll put the ball in the gap and she’ll rotate strike, and before you know it, quietly she’s at 25-30.”
Vaidya knows how stark the leap is from domestic to international level. She notes the adjustment in skill and mental preparation. And, as always, she’s already plotting. “As I play more games, I’ll develop that sense … I’ll learn it myself.”