Mumbai: In just her fourth ODI, 21-year-old Kranti Goud, India’s new pace sensation, produced a dream performance on Tuesday night. Her destructive spell of 6 for 52 powered India to a 13-run, series-clinching win at Chester-le-Street in Durham. But Goud wasn’t just living a dream — she was penning a remarkable chapter in her fairytale journey.Kranti’s heroics prompted captain Harmanpreet Kaur — who had set up the 2-1 series win with a blazing 84-ball 102, helping India post 318 for five in 50 overs — to share her Player of the Match award with the talented youngster. In a touching gesture, the India skipper also gifted Kranti a signed ball with a heartfelt message.Now, the back story. Kranti hails from a small village named Ghuwara near Chhatarpur in Madhya Pradesh. In fact, her village is a few kilometres from Khajuraho, famous for its temples. She is one of six siblings, and her father is a retired police constable who was suspended from duty a few years ago.“I’ve been training her since 2017. Her father brought her to me and said, ‘She plays cricket with the village girls. Can you coach her?’ I was impressed after watching her bowl in a practice match and asked her to move to Chhatarpur and join my academy,” Kranti’s childhood coach Rajiv Bilthare told TOI from Chhatarpur, where he is the secretary of the district cricket association.“However, a few days later, she told me that she wouldn’t be able to stay in Chhatarpur as she was struggling financially. I waived off her coaching fee, gave her shoes, a bat, everything, and asked her to stay at my place for a few days. Later, she stayed at her friend and fellow trainee Sushma’s place,” Bilthare revealed.Explaining what prompted him to help a girl from modest means pursue her cricketing dream, Bilthare said, “She was really quick, and that makes her different from the other girls. That kind of speed is a God-given gift. As you saw yesterday, she also has a very good yorker. I just had to work on ensuring that her ball lands on the seam — she does that almost perfectly now. She can swing the ball both ways beautifully.”A key strength of Goud — who finished the series against England with nine wickets in three matches at an average of 15.11 — is her ability to hit the stumps regularly. “Her rise was rapid. She went on to play for MP in all the age-group tournaments. Last season, she bowled Madhya Pradesh to the National Women’s Championship title, taking a four-wicket haul (including the scalp of India’s keeper-batter Richa Ghosh) in the final against Bengal. She can bat well too. She’s a disciplined cricketer. Since she has come this far from such a modest background, she understands the value of what she has. I keep telling her to keep working hard to sustain this success.”“This is how dreams are made. She has literally come up from nowhere. Her rise is phenomenal. She belongs to a very small village which doesn’t even have pucca houses, only thatched roofs. Her story should motivate every single girl who aspires to play for India one day,” Madhya Pradesh Cricket Association president Sanjeev Rao told TOI on Wednesday.“I must credit our association for sending talent spotters to every small district and village. It’s a system which we’ve cultivated over the years,” Rao added.A fair share of the credit for Kranti’s discovery, though, must go to former India stumper Chandrakant Pandit, currently rated as the best-ever coach in Indian domestic cricket.“She worked hard day and night, joined the MPCA’s camp conducted by Pandit (currently the Madhya Pradesh and Kolkata Knight Riders head coach), and within a year or so, improved her bowling tremendously. Credit must go to ‘Chandu sir,’ but there’s something about her bowling, a fire in her belly, a junoon (passion) which has helped her rise through the ranks so fast,” he said.“When she was 17, I had picked her from open trials that I conducted in Indore. Her run-up, the way she gathered momentum while running in, and her smooth action caught my eye. A couple of years ago, she had quit bowling because of back trouble. However, after I gave her a bamboo (scolding), she started bowling again at our academy and in practice matches. She’s also a brilliant fielder — she’s a good package,” Pandit praised.“We’ve worked on her line, length and wrist position in the off-season, and the results are showing now. She’s an energetic cricketer,” he added.“Considering that she was so poor, Sidhiyani Patni, who is the joint secretary of MPCA’s women’s cricket wing, used to send some food monthly to her family in the village. It was Sidhiyani who encouraged Kranti to play cricket and spoke to me about her first,” Pandit revealed.
The WPL impact
The Women’s Premier League, like for many Indian women cricketers, has changed Kranti’s life. For a few years, she was a net bowler for Mumbai Indians, before UP Warriorz picked her up at the WPL auction last year for her base price of ₹10 lakh.“When we picked Kranti Goud at the auction, she hadn’t played a single senior women’s T20 match. But at the trials, our scouts felt she had something special — she could move the ball both ways off the seam and had a sharp bouncer in her armoury. We backed her purely on potential, and to see her now performing for India just seven–eight months later is incredibly rewarding,” Kshemal Waingankar, COO of UP Warriorz, told TOI.Her dramatic rise has also seen her fortunes improve. “She has received sponsorship from Puma. She’s playing for India and in the WPL. She doesn’t have to worry about finances now,” Bilthare said.
