India vs Australia: Wise Sadhu adds the Titas touch to India’s World Cup preparation

A file photo of 19-year-old fast bowler Titas Sadhu, who finished 4-0-17-4, dismissing Beth Mooney, Tahlia McGrath, Ash Gardner and Annabel Sutherland, to lead India's nine-wicket haul of Australia in the first T20I at the DY Patil Stadium on Friday night. (Photo: X)

The balmy Friday night in Navi Mumbai nears 10.30 pm as Titas Sadhu enters the media-conference arena behind the Australian team’s dugout at the DY Patil Stadium. Her Player-of-the-Match Award in hand, India’s media manager in tow, the teen pacer greets the dozen-odd journalists in the room with courteous handshakes, polite nods and an affable smile in response to the congratulatory messages that accompany her arrival in the room.

It’s hard not to notice the student-like deference that informs pretty much every element of the 19-year-old’s conduct up to this point, or the conscientiousness that peeks out unwittingly soon after, as she heedfully maneuvers her brawny frame through the huddle of the reporters, seats herself down — consciously upright — facing the cameras, and cranes her neck to catch a fleeting instruction from the chief camera-operator.

The shutters go off. An eight-and-a-half-minute press conference ensues. On come questions on the major talking point of the night, one of the biggest in Sadhu’s five-match international career yet: Her 4 for 17 in India’s nine-wicket win against world champions Australia in the T20I series opener that made her the youngest Indian to pick a four-wicket haul in the format at the international level.

Sadhu answers each of the questions with a sage-like demeanour. Every response is carefully crafted, bereft of any baggage of clichés, and imbued with a clarity reminiscent of the kind that fuelled her destructive three-wicket new-ball burst in the powerplay on the night. Her wisdom belies her age but it’s no deviation from the sagacity the world, and her India team-mates, have come to see in her in recent months.

“She’s really sorted, I think. The more I look at her… for her age she is very sorted,” India vice-captain Smriti Mandhana said of Sadhu’s strength earlier in the evening. “She really knows where she wants to bowl; she will always come to you and tell, ‘This is my field and this is where I want to bowl.’ It’s amazing to see that kind of clarity at this age and, with that, a good work ethic. It’s a good combination and I hope she keeps continuing to do that.”

The perceptiveness in the youngster that Mandhana alluded to reveals itself every now and then in Sadhu’s considered choice of words in the presser. Terms and phrases like “resource”, “optimal”, “presence of mind” trip off her tongue when decoding her craft and relationship with her India coaches and team-mates, as though she had been studying both with a scientific devotion.

On Friday night, such acuity was also the cornerstone of her four-wicket haul. Tidy lines, astute change of lengths, wily variations of pace and use of cutters marked her introduction into the attack in the fourth over after India captain Harmanpreet Kaur opted to bowl. Five balls in, a legcutter from Sadhu cut short Beth Mooney’s enterprising stay, sending the 21,600-strong DY Patil Stadium crowd into raptures.

Titas Sadhu celebrates the wicket of Australia's Ashleigh Gardner. (ANI Photo)

A one-run, double-wicket over then followed. Sadhu’s relentlessness had run-machine Tahlia McGrath hole out to deep third and complete a sharp return catch off Ashleigh Gardner in the space of three deliveries. By the close of the powerplay, India’s 11th-hour addition to their four-seamer attack on the night had knocked the daylights out of Australia’s top order. An opposition that had beaten the Indian bowlers black and blue in a 190-run drubbing three nights earlier was left a touch red-faced at 33 for 4.

The difference, with the exception of a much-improved catching performance from India, was clearly, Sadhu.

“Full credit to her for coming in and taking four wickets against our side,” multiple World Cup-winner and Australia captain Alyssa Healy said in Sadhu’s praise. “I thought she bowled incredibly well, as did a lot of their new-ball bowlers, too, so full credit to them.”

For Sadhu, who completed her four-for with Annabel Sutherland’s wicket at the death, coming out on top against the Australians was nothing short of memorable. “They are terrific players,” said Sadhu, smiling, wide-eyed at the post-match media interaction. “And the good thing is I've grown up watching them and especially in this WPL (Women’s Premier League) as well I watched them. So, it's like a dream come true, right, to bowl to them?”

“I got to know that I was playing this game around, I think, 11-ish in the morning, and I was really excited because I had been sitting out for some while now,” Sadhu revealed. “I'm always waiting [as to] when my turn comes to ball … I just wanted to hit my lengths and make the ball move a little. I am lucky I got those wickets.”

Though only a teenager in the infancy of their career, Sadhu carries the reputation of a big-match performer. Her spectacular 2 for 6 in the final of the inaugural Under-19 World Cup in South Africa against a formidable England side handed her the Player-of-the-Match honours and India their maiden women’s cricket world title last January. In June, she went on to feature in India A’s title-winning Emerging Asian Cup side in Hong Kong. Three months later, she not only realised her childhood dream of debuting for the senior team, but also helped India win their maiden Asian Games gold in cricket with a sensational 4-2-6-3 spell in the final of the multi-sport tournament in Hangzhou.

Fast-forward to the new year, and Sadhu had humbled some of the most fearsome batters, and the world’s most successful women’s cricket team, inside the first hour of play. Then, half-centurions Smriti Mandhana and Shafali Verma forged a rapid 93-ball 137 opening stand to spearhead India’s successful 142 chase, kicking-starting a vital nine-month lead-in to the team’s renewed pursuit of a maiden senior women’s world title.

“Last [year, on] 31st December, I was in South Africa and we were just going to start the Under-19 World Cup. Luckily we had won [it] but one of the greatest grievances of that tournament was that we had lost to Australia and that was the only match we had lost there,” Sadhu said when asked of the heroics against the senior team.

Her outing in the first T20I came in the wake of a protracted time on the bench after two forgettable, and expensive, outings in the T20I series against England at the Wankhede Stadium last month. “This December was hard. My last couple of matches weren't as good," Sadhi said. "I'm lucky and I'm very grateful that I was able to come back and bowl good.”

Challenging as it was, the wait, even beyond the national mix, has not been without dividends. Picked by the Delhi Capitals at the WPL auction soon after the U-19 World Cup last year, she didn’t feature in any of the Meg Lanning-led side’s starting XI en route to their runners-up finish. But a staple at almost all of Capitals’ practice sessions, most of which took place at the DY Patil University ground next to the stadium, was the sight of Sadhu steaming in and meticulously honing her craft at the nets under the watch of the Jonathan Batty-helmed coaching staff.

“Especially coming from that Under-19 high, to sit [out] for the whole tournament — it was rough,” Sadhu admitted. “I think the first couple of matches it was pretty clear that I probably won't get a chance and it is very hard.

"But, I had this conversation with our trainer, Wayne [Lombard], and [he said] that in the men's IPL there are 25 players and greats sit out for two and a half months or so, so any opportunity or experience you get, you have to make the best out of it. And that actually became the key: After the first two weeks I just went into every practice, thinking I will learn as much as I can.”

Those that have followed Sadhu’s precocious rise through the Bengal age-group and senior ranks up all the way to elite international cricket often liken her appetite for improvement, and work ethic at large, to the most feted female bowler the country has produced: Jhulan Goswami. Unsurprisingly, the former India captain and current Bengal mentor was a prominent presence. despite her physical absence, on Sadhu’s big night in Navi Mumbai, too.

"She comes from Bengal and Bengal has given us one legendary cricketer in Jhulu di,” Mandhana quipped during an interaction with the host broadcaster, smiling ear-to-ear, as though unwittingly alluding to the oft-spoken passing of the pace-bowling baton in Indian women's cricket. The metaphorical facet of it materialised on September 24 last year as Sadhu’s international debut coincided with the one-year-anniversary of Goswami’s blockbuster swansong at Lord’s.

“Jhulan Goswami has been a big part of my life,” Sadhu said. “I first saw her when she was 13, and she has been in constant presence. Right now she is with Bengal, which I am supposed to probably join after this series. Working with her is a great opportunity; not a lot of people have it, and you get that experience. How many players have played more than 100 matches for India and for 20 years? I am not even 20 years old!”

Sadhu remembers the first conversation she had with Goswami: "She had told [me], ‘Stop thinking about everything else; just bowl fast. If you are a fast bowler, you have to bowl fast,’ and I think that has been a key."

In the forthcoming 18 months, which bring with them two shots at World Cup glory for India – the first in T20Is, in Bangladesh, and the second in the 50-over format at home – every advice culled from years of growing under Goswami’s tutelage could prove invaluable for the youngster. As might lessons gleaned from a night like Friday when clarity and discipline returned great rewards. When the stakes are higher, and the room for error nearly nought, could it be the Titas touch that turns silver into gold for India at long last?