Between damaged fingers and fingers crossed for World Cup — exhausting work, ‘catch of the year’

On Friday evening, as 23-year-old Indian all-rounder Harleen Deol took a reverse-cupped catch above her head and throwing the ball within the air earlier than crossing boundary and regaining her stability to make a dive to finish the catch contained in the boundary to dismiss England’s Amy Jones within the nineteenth over off the bowling of Shikha Pandey within the rain-affected first ladies’s T20I match at Northampton, England, Harleen’s mom Charanjit Kaur Deol remembered all of the accidents and fractures her daughter had obtained as a trainee on the Yadavindra Public School, Mohali, and later at HPCA Women’s cricket academy at Dharamshala.
Harleen’s sensational catch additionally earned reward on Twitter from cricketers like Sachin Tendulkar, V V S Laxman, Harbhajan Singh, former England captain Nasser Hussain, former Australian cricketer Lisa Sthalekar aside from political leaders like newly appointed Union Sports Minister Anurag Thakur, Smriti Rani, Shivraj Singh Chauhan, Priyanka Gandhi and actors like Farhan Akhtar. The video posted on Twitter by England Cricket Board had greater than 2.8 million views inside 24 hours. Tendulkar termed it catch of the yr. Even although the Indian ladies’s group misplaced by 18 runs the match determined by DRS, it was a particular second for the Deol household.
“Harleen started playing cricket at the age of seven and I still remember her coming home from the Yadvindra Public School ground after bowling with a broken finger within months of her starting her career. Once while playing for Himachal Pradesh in Gujarat, she bowled despite an injured finger. To see her take such a sensational catch without worrying about the fall and getting praise from players like Sachin Tendulkar, V V S Laxman and Nasser Hussain apart from leaders and fans is the biggest reward for Harleen’s hard work,” mentioned Deol’s mom Charanjeet Kaur whereas speaking to The Indian Express.
Harleen together with her mom Charanjeet Kaur.
Harleen, who began cricket on the age of seven years, had performed in an U-19 inter-school match on the age of eight years and would play within the Punjab U-19 group in 2010. The teen initially began as an off-spinner earlier than shifting to being a leg-spinner and shifted base to Dharmshala, Himachal Pradesh, in 2012 to affix the HPCA U-19 academy. The following years would see Harleen being one of many lead spinners within the Himachal Pradesh ladies’s group earlier than she performed for India A in opposition to England in 2018. The identical yr, Harleen scored 288 runs and claimed 11 wickets for Himachal within the BCCI Women’s sooner or later league, adopted by being the best scorer for India Red within the ladies’s challenger trophy in 2019. In 2019, Harleen made her ladies’s ODI debut in opposition to England, adopted by her T20I debut in opposition to England and was additionally within the Indian T20 group, which reached the finals of the World T20 in Australia final yr.
HPCA academy coach Pawan Sen remembers Deol’s exhausting work in her preliminary days on the academy and progress made within the following years. “Like any young cricketer, Harleen had her fears of diving and sliding to stop the ball. We trained the HPCA Academy trainees to slide on wet pitch covers to end the fear of sliding and diving on the ground. It helped her. Along with her bowling and batting. She has evolved to be a very good fielder and to earn praise from the cricketing world shows her hard work,” mentioned 51-year-old Sen.
HPCA energy and conditioning coach Veena Pandey too credit Deol for her exhausting work. “She has been passionate about fitness and her Yo Yo test score would always be above 15 when she trained at the academy. It has improved further and it is heartening to watch,” Pandey mentioned.
With the all-rounder having performed in one in every of ladies’s ODI and 10 ladies’s T20I, the household can also be hopeful of Harleen making the minimize for the Indian group for the subsequent yr’s ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup. “We hope that she will cement her place in the team and play in the world cup next year,” mentioned B S Deol, Harleen’s father.