"The COVID-19 lockdown break came at the right time for me," confesses the 22-year-old Anushka Sharma, with the benefit of hindsight, to Cricbuzz. It was at that point, as a recently-turned 17-year-old, that she doubted if she was good enough to take up cricket professionally.

After a lean season of Under-19, Anushka had come to believe she wasn't cut out to make it big in cricket, and contemplated giving up on the sport. It was the first time in her young journey as a cricketer she had realised that the sport wasn't just all fun and play - the way she had approached it all along. The seriousness of it had hit her after her first string of failures.

The clarity and the resolution took place in April 2020 on the rooftop of the Sharma household in Gwalior's Madhav Nagar. As part of the family's new post-dinner routine where they would take a stroll at the rooftop to share light jokes or discuss pressing concerns, they firefought the doubts of their daughter that night.

"One bad year cannot decide if you are good enough or not," was the conclusion of the deep conversation that ensued. "Give it some time"

*****

If her elder brother had his way for long enough, Anushka would have shaped into a pace bowler. Anushka's introduction to cricket as a 4-year-old, after all, happened because her brother wanted someone to fulfill his desire to keep batting for long hours. He taught Anushka to roll her arms, and filled in her the first sense of validation in the game by repeatedly praising her bowling.

Anushka was too naive and too young to pick on his trick. But she was happy to tag along with her brother; play with him and his friends.

When the bat size seemed too small, she would swing around a thapka (a bat like wooden piece used to wash clothes). Her father purchased for her a plastic bat and even designed customised pads, which could be worn from both sides. "Till now, I don't know what material he used, but it was extremely light," Anushka says.

Her introduction to serious cricket came at the age of 14 when her father learnt of a trial for Under-16 girls in Gwalior. Anushka agreed to go for it as it offered her an opportunity to miss school, at least for a day.

It was the first time she was playing alongside girls. Having sharpened her skills playing various sports - badminton, football, cricket - playing alongside her brother and his friends all these years, it took little time for her to impress the selectors at the trials. She was selected to play in Gwalior's Under-16 team, and soon for Madhya Pradesh at the zonal Under-16s in the 2018-19 season, where she won the award for the best all-rounder .

By next year, she had graduated to the Under-19 side and handed the responsibility to captain the team. Even though she was playing competitive cricket, the sport was pursued recreationally by Anushka. She hadn't thought too far beyond winning and losing the upcoming games, floating in the joys of immediate success.

However, her inability to find success at the higher level, which also happened to be her first tryst with failure as a cricketer, raised self doubts. It prompted her to question if cricket is really what she wanted to do. After all hailing from a family that's deeply involved in academics (her mother was a teacher, her father is an editor of a newspaper and her brother an IIT Bombay graduate working as a Data Scientist), her involvement in sports was an anomaly, even if her family never dissuaded her from sports or pushed her towards academics.

"Suddenly at a higher level, when the runs weren't coming, it made me wonder if I can make it as a cricketer. I was not able to score runs. I was more worried about the outcome at that time - that I want to win the trophy. That built a lot of pressure. That evening I broke down.

"My family told me that it was just the start, and that I have to play a lot more going ahead. After that conversation, I understood the sport a bit better. If I have to captain, what kind of mindset I needed to carry. I tried to simplify everything. Making myself realise that winning and losing is not in my hands. My attempt was to do my best at what I'm doing. Since then, that thought has neither crossed my mind again, and nor will it come again."

She resumed cricket, taking over the Under-19 captaincy for the state team and the India B team, which won the Under-19 championship. Soon, she featured for the senior team, and played in the senior Challengers.

*****

Anushka had grown up as a fan of Virat Kohli, with the first cricket match she recalls seeing on television being the India vs Australia World T20 match in 2016, where the Indian batting legend played one of his finest knocks.

"Woh aise bhaag bhi rahe the, aur akele team ko jeeta bhi rahe the. I don't know how he thinks but his performance blew me away that day. He set the benchmark for aspiring cricketers like us, because he ticked all the boxes."

The boxes she speaks of are fitness, mindset, skills, consistency, determination and grit. "He exemplifies all of this."

In her preparation to become a professional cricketer, she attempted to imbibe the qualities she saw from a distance.

In 2022, just when she decided to shift base to Indore to take her cricket preparation a notch higher, she came across a call for trials from a cricket academy in Shivpuri, where players were coached by Arun Singh, who had a reputation for training several domestic and international women cricketers.

Fully aware of the reputation of the coach, she discarded her plans and moved to Shivpuri to train under him. It wasn't as if her journey was smooth sailing. She picked cues whenever she could. In the senior One-Day tournament in 2022, she had scored only one half century. She injured her hand and was out on a break. While she attempted to return to action, she reached out to statemate Rajat Patidar with a question: How do I score a century?

The aspirations were ambitious but Patidar offered a more humbling response. "If you are going to bat thinking that you want to score a century, you won't. You have to set small targets, and start every ball as if you're batting on zero."

When she returned to action in the senior division matches, she knocked a double century in the first game, and then followed it up with another century. In the 2023-24 Under-23 season, she topped the run charts.

Through all this, her training methods rapidly evolved from 2022, and her big hitting skills were developed courtesy several hours of range hitting practice. The methods worked successfully, and despite her lean frame, she was able to showcase her hard-hitting skills at the Madhya Pradesh Premier League, which caught the eye of the WPL scouts, before being roped in by Gujarat Giants.

*****

Michael Klinger, Gujarat Giants' head coach, had directed his attention towards Anushka as a talented player. But he was yet to see for himself if she could take on the challenge of the highest level. To test her temperament, she was thrown into the deep end only 26 balls into Giants' 2026 WPL campaign.

It wasn't as much out of choice as out of compulsion of an inexperienced and limited Indian batting reserve in the squad that she found her opportunity at No 3. Soon after her stride into the middle, Giants lost Sophie Devine, and with it, the early momentum in the contest.

To make the task more stiff, her skipper Ash Gardner, was struggling to put away poor deliveries at the other end. She managed to scrap through to only 18 runs off her first 19 deliveries. It wasn't as if Anushka was expected to shoulder the burden of Giants' batting, but she took on the responsibility with ease.

S Asha, the veteran leggie, was at the receiving end of her wide range of strokes - swept, pulled and reverse paddled for boundaries. It wasn't just her; even the internationals bore the brunt of her attack. Sophie Ecclestone was driven through covers and Deandra Dottin hit over extra cover for boundary.

Even if there were times where she looked under-confident to over-rule the running calls of her captain - which could have led to her dismissal - she was at ease taking on the opposition. She used the depth of crease well, and smartly navigated the ball through gaps on the field. Her ability to soak in pressure, game awareness, temperament and skills were all on display.

She departed looking to bring up her half-century with a six, by holding out to the long on fielder, but she had done her bit by then; taking on the pressure when the senior partner was struggling, and laying the foundation of Giants' massive score, and eventual victory.

Gardner cut loose in the 13th over and hammered a 41-ball 65, but even if Anushka couldn't find the top name on the scoresheet, her involvement was far more than just a supportive act.

Only a few hours after her performance, coach Michael Klinger placed a big bet. "Anushka, I don't want to make a big statement," he cautioned, but added "she's going to be playing for India.

His reason?

"She's a fantastic cricketer. She's got time in the crease. She's timing the ball beautifully. She can hit both through the field and over the field. We felt that was going to stand up against good-quality bowling that you get in WPL. She bowls really well as well. She's really good in the field. She trains really hard. She's great around the group.

Her talent hasn't been identified by Gujarat Giants alone.

"At the WPL auctions, three teams bid for her," Klinger recalled. "We thought maybe she'd go under the radar, and we sort of talent-ID'd her. But she had two other teams bid for her in the option. People obviously know in India, involving cricket, that she's a high-quality young player. We're so happy to have her.

"It's only her first game. She'll just keep working her way. (4:38) There'll be some games she does well. There'll be some games she misses out, as it does with any player, particularly a young player. We're keen to keep backing her in. I think this experience for her is only going to make her better."

It was all down to belief and confidence which pushed Anushka to transform and evolve as a cricketer. For which she now says, "That lean phase taught me that the worst of times bring something good. So I don't take that phase in a negative sense. It allowed me to switch off from cricket and look at it from a different perspective. I was grateful for that two-year break. It allowed me to grow as a cricketer."