Out of bowling action,Pradhan sets her sights on comeback

Having just taken off her pads after scoring a breezy unbeaten 30 to lead the PDCA XI to a nine-wicket win over NMV,Pradhan says it is “good to get any kind of match practice”.

This is an understandable sentiment,since the 26-year-old Pune girl has just come out of the most testing phase of her cricketing career till date. After an ODI against England at Derby in July last year,Pradhan was reported by the on-field umpires for suspect action. After she had her action tested by experts at the School of Sport Science,Exercise and Health in Perth,the ICC declared that her action exceeded the 15-degree tolerance limit and that she would have to undergo remedial work before being allowed to bowl again.

“It was a small technical adjustment that I had to make,” says Pradhan. “I needed to get my body alignment right,and use my front arm a little more. I worked on it with bowling coaches Bharat Arun and R Venkatraman at the NCA (National Cricket Academy) in Bangalore,where I had a month-long camp in August.”

Back in Mumbai — where she works for Western Railway — Pradhan would practice her remodelled action assiduously at the Maharashtra team’s nets. “It wasn’t very difficult,since the technical adjustment was minimal,” she says. “It was just a matter of repetition.”

In January,Pradhan went back to Perth,to undergo more bio-mechanical tests. “It was the same routine that Muttiah Muralitharan went through,” she says. All the remedial work paid off and on February 18,the ICC cleared her action.

Despite the good news,Pradhan knew she would have to start from the scratch. “Essentially,I hadn’t bowled in a match for the entire season,” she says.

“But I played as a batsman,and got several opportunities to open or bat in the top three or four for Maharashtra.” Till then,except for a couple of Twenty20 innings as an opener,Pradhan had batted mostly in the lower middle-order.

“For those six months,it was all about keeping my place in the side,” she says. “I always had the ability,but I started paying a lot more attention to the technical areas. From the next season on,I want to make both departments count.” What remained was her return to bowling in competitive fixtures. When the Australian women’s team toured India in March,Pradhan got an opportunity to captain the Board President’s Women’s XI.

India’s bowlers have suffered at the hands of Rachael Haynes,Meg Lanning and Pradhan,who took the new ball,was no exception,taking one for 33 in five overs,but it didn’t take away the fact that she was back to doing what she did best.

“It was good to be bowling again. I knew I had done the work and that my action wouldn’t be a problem,” she says. “That match was a confidence booster.” The long break from bowling meant that she has missed the bus when the selectors named the Indian women’s team for the England tour in July. Pradhan,however,is confident of staging a comeback.

“As of now,I know I need to play more official matches,” she says. “The season really starts only in November,so till then I just have to bide my time.”