Kiran Navgire grew up adoring Mahendra Singh Dhoni and referred to the six hit by him to win the 2011 ODI World Cup as a potential turning point in helping fuel her dreams of taking up cricket seriously.
“I only ever wanted to play cricket because I dreamt of hitting sixes like Dhoni,” says the hard-hitting 27-year-old all-rounder from Maharashtra. “I only ever wanted to play cricket because I dreamt of hitting sixes like Dhoni,” Navgire had told ESPNCricinfo in 2022.
When the UP Warriorz arrived at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium on Wednesday in desperate need of a win to turn their fortunes around, they knew they needed to take a different approach with their batting at the top of the order. Vrinda Dinesh has shown in domestic cricket what she can do with the bat on her day. But the WPL stage is not for the faint-hearted. The Chinnaswamy stadium has consistently witnessed large crowds for all the matches played so far and that factor, combined with expectations from one’s teammates, can sometimes make it an intimidating experience.
The Warriorz needed to shake things a bit at the top and they opted to promote Navgire to open with Healy. While no one was aware of how well the ploy would come off, it was certainly not a shot in the dark as the batter is used to facing the new ball while representing Nagaland in domestic cricket.
In hindsight, the decision proved to be a masterstroke almost as if someone had turned a switch on in her head, Navgire took to the promotion like a duck to water, smashing a 31-ball 57 that contained six fours and four sixes.
Each of the four sixes was hit to different parts of the ground but had one distinct feature – a clean bat swing. There was no slogging involved and she used her feet to get to the pitch of the ball before letting her arms generate the power needed to clear the fence with ease.
“They told me before maybe you could open, so I was mentally prepared. When the score was big, the head coach told me you are opening, so I felt happy. I was playing the ball on merit, that’s the plan. I like to play to my strengths and that’s what I do,” Navgire said at the post-match presentation, where she was awarded Player of the match for her showing.
The Warriorz were in dire need of a fillip from somewhere and Navgire provided just that with her explosive hitting on Wednesday. Addressing the press after the match, she said that she had worked hard on her fitness before the season since she had identified that as an area that required improvement.
Navgire said that one of the instructions from skipper Alyssa Healy at the other end was to ask her to take her time as she had the power to make it up later in the innings.
“She was telling me to take my time while batting since I had the strength and make up later. She urged me to stay in the middle and asked me to play the ball on merit. I had an easy plan to just do that. She was telling me where the overseas bowlers would bowl to me,” Navgire said.
The loss to DC in their second match had not meant they had found themselves on the wrong side of the result on two occasions, but it had also impacted their net run-rate, which had gone deep into the negative.
The win on Wednesday may not have improved the net run-rate from negative to positive, but the two points obtained would certainly give the Warriorz the desired confidence heading into the final few days of the Bengaluru leg of the WPL.
The Warriorz will also know that heading into their remaining games, one of their headaches at the top had also been solved by the Navgire blitzkrieg.
Comments
0 comment