From the city of Taj to Lord's, young nineteen-year-old Deepti Sharma is living a dream. At the age of nine, Deepti began a journey of which she was uncertain about where it would lead her. But with the destination firmly set in her mind, she kept following her dream of making it into the women's cricket team with dogged determination. Youngest of seven siblings, Deepti was very close to her elder brother Sumit, who introduced her to the game of cricket. Speaking to Indianexpress.com, Deepti recalled the incident which was the changing moment in her life. "I used to accompany my brother Sumit to his academy. One day I was sitting on the stairs watching his match and suddenly the ball came to me. I threw the ball and it directly hit the stumps. There were a few girls practising on the field and among them was Hemlata Kala (former Indian cricketer). She asked my brother if I was his younger brother. In reply, he corrected her and said that she is my sister," Deepti recalls. "Without wasting much time, Hemlata ma'am asked Sumit to get me for training every day." Deepti credits Kala for her success so far. Naturally, a right-hander, Deepti believes if the former cricketer had not exposed her to the opportunities, she wouldn't have made it into the women's team at such a young age. Fond of watching videos in her free time, Deepti is now focused on revamping her spin bowling. And to do so, she watches Ravichandran Ashwin's videos and tries to learn from his variations. "I haven't met him yet but am a fan of the variations he uses in Test cricket. I often try to bowl the carrom ball at the nets but haven't used it in a match situation as yet. It is necessary to have variations in your bowling as most of the non-Asian players find it tough to handle spin. Deepti believes she is more of a batting all-rounder and prefers batting higher up the order. However, she is comfortable in batting at any position wherever her captain wants her to. "The win against England in the (World Cup) opener was a confidence booster for us. From there on we started believing in our abilities and complimented each other's efforts. Also, we did not rely on one player and saw a different match winner in each game," she said. From being 191/3, Indian women's team was bundled out to 219. Seven wickets in a matter of 28 runs saw India hand the World Cup title, which was pretty much in their hands, to England. "When I went to bat in the final, the team needed 28 runs and my focus was on staying until the end. I focused on taking singles. It was an achievable target but somehow things did not work in our favour," said Deepti when asked about what going on inside her mind during India's "Not many people recognised us before we went to the World Cup. But it is after our performance England that people started hailing us. One thing I have learnt is to remain cool in pressure situations. Whatever the situation is, you need to stay calm which unfortunately we couldn't in the World Cup," she added. When asked about how is Mithali Raj as a captain during intense situations, the left-handed batswoman said her captain has qualities similar to that of MS Dhoni. "Mithu di is like the Dhoni of our team. She is cool and composed at crucial moments. She believes our performance should speak for us. I always try to learn good things from her," said Deepti. Wishing to see more talent step out after their performance at the World Cup, Deepti feels women's IPL should start soon. "Women's IPL should have started long back but its never too late. The sooner it starts it's better for us," she concluded.
