As a child playing cricket in the fields outside her home in Wayanad of Kerala, Minnu Mani realised how much she loved the sport. People in the family did not like it that she took off to play a game which only boys in the neighbourhood did. Cricket, it was thought, was not a girl’s game. But Minnu continued to play and her talent was recognised at the school she went to.
She went on playing, from the school-level to district cricket association level and then the state-level. She played for Kerala for years, before getting selected to play in the first season of the Women’s Premier League (WPL) this year. Three months later, she is on her way to join the Indian team for its T20I series against Bangladesh.
“It was my years of training at the Kerala Cricket Academy, which comes under the Kerala Cricket Association, that helped develop my batting and bowling,” Minnu says, sitting on a bus to Mumbai to join her teammates.
Minnu belongs to the Kurichiya tribe, one of the Scheduled Tribes in Wayanad. While growing up, she had to travel an hour and a half just to get to the nearest stadium where she could practise. Back then, while playing with boys in the neighbourhood, she would only get to be a fielder and would be denied chances to bat or bowl. But when she began playing in her school, her Special Education Teacher Elsamma noticed her skills in the game and introduced her to the Wayanad Cricket Association coach Shanavas. Later Shanavas would present her case to the Wayanad District Association and from there the association secretary Nazir Machan took it up.
From the district-level, she went on to state-level, and then South India-level. Minnu was recognised as an all-rounder in all these stages. Next was the WPL. “I learnt that I was in the auction list of seven women from Kerala for the WPL before I was selected to play (for the Delhi Capitals),” Minnu says.
She played in three matches, got to bowl three overs and batted twice. She is not disappointed that she could only do so much, she says. “There were so many experienced players and I am happy I got to play three matches. Some others didn’t even get to play so much.”
Minnu is in the top order of batting and a right arm off spinner. She had never stopped practising through her years in school and college, after the first district selection. “From class nine to the time of my Bachelor’s Degree, I got trained at the Cricket Academy,” she says.
A 24-year-old now, she is finishing her BA in Sociology through distance learning. For her age, Minnu sounds awfully mature, when she says how women in sports in Kerala do not last long because they give up after a few failures. “They may get a few chances and then if they don’t do well, they get disheartened and withdraw from sports. Sometimes, you may need to wait and keep trying out for better results,” she says. When asked whether she coaches younger girls in her hometown, Minnu said it is not yet time for that. She needs a lot more experience to do that, she says.