Between deplaning from the Mumbai-Vadodara flight and collecting her kitbag at the conveyor belt, Bharti Fulmali had a number of her Gujarat Giants teammates come over. Congratulations were in order, though she didn't quite know why. Her phone was still on the flight mode, and the surprise showed. When she finally switched it on, it wouldn't stop buzzing - missed calls, messages, and more incoming notifications. The first call back went to her sister, but she's genuinely lost count of the backlog of unanswered texts.

When she had called home to share the news of her India recall for the February-March Australia tour, nearly seven years after her first-and-last international series, she realised the internet had already done the job. Her family knew; and were already celebrating. Somehow, amid all the noise, Fulmali herself had been the last to know that the wait was finally over.

When Fulmali made her debut in March 2019, Indian women's cricket was in a different place. Domestic matches weren't televised, talent pool was thinner and more seasonal, and opportunities once missed didn't always come back around. On the back of an exceptional domestic season, she earned her maiden cap and just like that, two matches and two failures later, she was sidelined.

"At the time I felt I got very few opportunities," Fulmali tells Cricbuzz, not with bitterness but with pragmatism. "It all happened in a jiffy - good domestic season, India call-up, two quick games and then the drop. But, it's okay. These challenges are a part of a sportsperson's life, I guess. I got two games, I had to make it count and I couldn't. That phase after [the drop] was very hard though."

The gulf between India's domestic cricket and international standards of the pre-WPL is widely spoken of. Fulmali felt it first-hand. She waited a bit for a recall then, but it wasn't meant to be. Then came COVID, and its uncertainty. A year went by without so much as international cricket for the women. That's when intrusive thoughts crept in - including if it's time to walk away. For someone who'd already once lived the India dream, the silence and the wait cut deep.

"Once you are dropped from the Indian team, a comeback is quite hard. The thought [to walk away] always kept coming back [in the COVID year]."

She had the family's unwavering support to let her stay in cricket a while longer. "Tu bindaas khel, kuch nahin hoga(you focus on your cricket, we'll take care of the rest)," her father assured Fulmali when she brought up the tough conversation of household finances with her lower middle-class family.

The finances remained the elephant in the room, though. She wanted to join Railways for the financial security it offered, but they weren't keen then. When they came around, Fulmali had decided to stick with the state side to improve her chances of getting noticed. "I had lost the Railways opportunity, to be fair." But she kept applying for jobs through sports quota every time a recruitment notice was in the papers. "Andhere mein teer zaroor maarti thi, humesha[I kept trying my luck]."

At a point, the job-hunt even took precedence over cricket, for her father was now nearing retirement. Fortunately, in 2023, she joined the Income Tax Department in Bengaluru, becoming the first woman cricketer in the country to do so. The job mattered, because financial independence wasn't optional anymore.

Cricket continued alongside work, but she could take leave for camps and tournaments. What kept her going wasn't immediately the comeback goal - that almost felt wishful thinking now - but something more controllable. Winning trophies domestically that could, in turn, pave the way for her back to the national colours. She diverted her energies, and motivation, into making herself useful for Vidarbha.

In that quest to stay relevant, Fulmali then made a quiet decision that would reshape her career. She gave up the thought of where she wanted to slot in the line-up, and instead focussed on where she could matterin the bigger picture: to the Indian side. The top-order was star-studded, and always crowded. The lower-order, not so much. Especially in T20 cricket, where India were on the lookout for fresh finishers.

"One day, on self-introspection, I asked myself 'which slot is readily available?' Middle-order or a finisher's role. 'Right, so, what's in my hand? How do I stake a claim?'"

Thus began the reinvention.

It wasn't a popular idea, though. Coaches, including her personal one, were reluctant. Family members questioned why she was "dropping herself". After all, batting lower meant fewer balls, fewer runs and fewer highlights. But Fulmali wasn't in it for the optics.

"Maine socha, yaar, scores kisko dikhana hain? [Aspiring to be a finisher] my job was not to put up a big score match after match. My job was to show impact. If ultimately the team won because of an impact knock at a crucial juncture, I knew I'd made the highlights reel enough to make powers-that-be take notice."

Backed, by chance for a game, by the then state coach Anju Jain, Fulmali enjoyed the responsibility, and even relished the challenge of finishing games at the backend instead of building platforms upfront at her usual one-drop position.

Her perspective completely shifted. "If I was harbouring dreams of playing matches on some of the biggest grounds, in front of packed crowds - be it for India or in WPL - I had to learn how to handle that pressure of winning games."

But this ambitious resurgence demanded hard work more than just the intent. Fulmali didn't take long to convince her personal coach, Sandeep Gawande, back in Amravati. Together the duo got to work: rebuilding her batting with a specific role in mind. As a finisher, Fulmali knew she'd get not more than 10-15 balls, and the idea was to prepare for as much.

There would be no closed nets, and no vague drills or batting for hours, she demanded. Gawande concurred. They trained in open nets, centre wickets with other academy kids, or cones, subbing in as fielders. They practised with tennis balls, because if she could clear the 50-60m ropes with those, a worn-out leather-ball in the slog-overs of the game would feel easier to dispatch.

"I'm not big on batting in nets. I needed to know where exactly my shots were going. If I was getting only a handful of balls to make an impact, I need to have my shots, the power-hitting skills, the six-hitting ability."

Gawande set brutal targets. Of 12-delivery sets, seven or eight had to clear the boundary. In sets of two overs each, she'd repeat the drills over a dozen times at least in one training session - with different field settings, with different bowlers into the attack. If the targets were being met, the 60m boundaries would be pushed back further the next session onwards.

A part of the process was adding more shots to the repertoire. The conventional sweep, the slog-sweep, the inside-out over covers - shots that are rare but rewarding, in areas that are traditionally underused in women's cricket and often, also, vacant. Hitting in the V alone wasn't enough anymore, the range of shots had to be expanded to exploit all varieties of bowling she could encounter in death overs.

Even for all the hard yards she was putting in behind the scenes, the rewards weren't instant. When the WPL auction arrived, Fulmali went unsold. And then again in 2024.

"It was disappointing, to be honest," she admits. "I had the runs, the strike-rate was good too. But I still went unsold at the first-two auctions."

But just like that, the phone rang one day when she was watching the WPL game at home. The Giants were seeking an injury replacement for Harleen Deol, who sustained an ACL tear in Delhi towards the business half of the second edition.

In under 24 hours - wherein she packed her bags, kit, travelled, joined the squad, and trained - Fulmali walked into the XI right away. There was no time for emotions, or a celebration, or even nerves. "It all happened so fast, I didn't get any time to process my emotions. It all just went in the flow. Maybe that's a good thing, in hindsight."

In the very first game, she chipped in a valuable 13-ball 21 and in the Giants' last of the season, she top-scored with 33-ball 42. Both came in losing causes, but the impact was enough for the franchise to place their faith in the replacement player. Fulmali got the retention call.

In the off-season, she'd spoken to Michael Klinger (head coach) and Dan Marsh (batting coach) about the specifics of where they wanted her to improve. Strike-rates against pace and fielding were identified as the areas that needed attention, and promptly worked upon.

She didn't feature in the starting XI of the early games in the 2025 edition, but the Giants eventually came back to her. "That trust they showed - it stays with the player. GG started to feel like home."

So much so, watching the WPL 2026 mega auction, Fulmali was secretly hoping to be brought back by the Giants. Mumbai Indians were interested, even UP Warriorz raised their paddle. Giants matched MI's bid of INR 45 lakh via RTM. MI raised the price to INR 70 lakh, and GG were happy to cover it. And her happiness knew no bounds when she found she's returning "home". The three-way mini battle between sides even offered a sliver of validation.

"It was the comfort level, honestly. With coach [Klinger], Ash [Gardner], [Beth] Mooney, still around. People knew me, I knew them. My role was clear, they knew my style and the expectations were set. There's a level of trust after two seasons. If I went to a new franchise, I would have to redevelop that again in a new environment."

In the very first game of the new cycle, Fulmali played an unbeaten cameo of 14 off 7 deliveries at a strike-rate of 200 - executing exactly what GG had brought her back on board for. Against Harmanpreet Kaur-led MI, she hit 36* off 15 and in the following game against Smriti Mandhana's RCB a 20-ball 39 - a sure-shot way of grabbing attention.

"We literally have this ongoing, but friendly, competition of who's gonna hit more sixes!" Fulmali breaks into laughter thinking of the banter between her and "the legend" she now gets to call a teammate: Sophie Devine.

Not just Devine, those sixes were getting noticed elsewhere as well. And just like that, after more than 2500 days in the wilderness, the India recall arrived. The dream that had admittedly begun to feel like only a dream.