Vishal Dikshit
One day as a teenager, Saika Ishaque decided not to turn up at her cricket academy anymore. “It was an all-boys academy and no one there knew I was a girl,” she says. “I had short hair. But the day they found out, I was so embarrassed I stopped going the next day.”
Ishaque grew up playing cricket with boys on the streets of Park Circus in Kolkata. Her father introduced her to the game at an early age, taking her to the cricket grounds with a bat that was almost bigger than her. She died when she was just nine years old, but she continued to play thanks to the support of her mother, her uncle Ishmael and a friend of her father who enrolled her in this boys’ academy.
When Ishaque was reluctant to return to training, her father’s friend took her to an all-girls academy, where she encountered face knee with a very tall Indian player. When they asked her to stand next to her, she didn’t even come up to her waist, she says. “This is Jhulan Goswami, India player,” someone told her.
“Oh, do the women play for India too?” Ishaque remembers wondering. “I only knew about people like Sahin [Tendulkar] and everything. I didn’t even know the girls were playing [professionally]. I felt like I was arriving alone [Jhulan’s] knee. She was so tall. I thought, ‘Who is that?'”
Today Ishaque, a left-hander, is playing her second season in the WPL for Mumbai Indians, where Goswami is the bowling coach. She was one of the players of the first season, taking 4 for 11 on debut and finishing with 15 wickets with an economy of seven from ten matches.
During her academy days, Ishaque’s first love was wicketkeeping, followed by fast bowling, but a coach insisted she try spin as a left-hander. Although reluctant at first, she did well as a spinner, quickly progressing through the under-19 and senior teams of Bengal, where she met another Indian player, who became her role model.
“When I was playing for the big guys [Bengal] on the side, I saw the Gouher Sultana bowl. He played so much for India. She inspired me as a child and then I got to play with her. He is from Hyderabad but played in Bengal for a few years. She inspired me to bowl left-handed and I learned a lot from her. I’ve been following her since I was little.”
Sultana played 87 matches for India between 2008 and 2014 and now 35, returns to top-level cricket in the tournament that catapulted Ishaque to the world stage last year. They will possibly face each other in the WPL when Sultana’s UP Warriorz meet Mumbai on February 28 and again on March 7.
While playing together for Bengal, Ishaque saw Sultana bowl the new ball, sometimes even in 50-over matches. Ishaque did the same for Mumbai Indians last year, bowling 15 overs for six wickets, the most overs bowled and wickets taken by a spinner in powerplays in WPL 2023.
“There are very few spinners who are given the ball in the powerplays, and when Mumbai trusted me with that job, I knew I had to reciprocate that faith.
“First I try to pick up wickets or at least stop the flow of runs. I used to tell myself to stay in my power no matter what the batsman did, because if I stick to my plans, he will make some mistake or the other.”
Ishaque counted quite a few big names among her victims last season, starting with Sophie Devine in her second game. When she was bowled for the third over, Devine smashed her for four first balls.
“Once you do well, the next time you have to perform either as well or even better. There was no choice to go even a little worse.
“When she [Devine] hit my first ball for four, I thought, ‘Why are you stressing me out with the first ball’?’ Ishaque laughs. “If someone hits my first ball, it starts playing in my head.
“She was stirring quite a bit even before I gave the ball. One time I stopped with my stride and it made her angry. I stopped again and she was furious. I think she threw her wicket in anger.”
In Isahque’s second over, Devine hit it for another four, to cover, but was caught the next ball when he failed to clear midwicket. Ishaque ended her powerplay spell with 2 for 13 from two overs and ended the game with 2 for 26.
As the tournament continued, Ishaque also took the wickets of Meg Lanning, Alyssa Healy and Shafali Verma. The secret to shrugging off such dangerous blows, he says, was to do nothing special.
“I tried to keep myself calm and tried to do the same things that had brought me to the WPL. I trained for days like this, so on the day of the match I tried to do the same thing. I don’t need to do anything special.”
For this steady head on her shoulders, Ishaque credits her coach Shibsagar Singh, a former left-arm spinner from Bengal. In 2018, Ishaque injured her bowling shoulder and when she returned after a long absence, she found that she couldn’t land the ball where she wanted. One of the coaches at the academy suggested she talk to Shibsagar for advice.
“When he asked me what the main problem was, I didn’t know what to say. He asked me to send him a clip of my bowling and when he saw it, he gave me some instructions.
“For a month or two we kept in touch on the phone about technical matters. Gradually I started bowling like before my injury. I got back into the Bengals team thanks to him and he was the first person I went to after my matches to tell him that his suggestions worked.”
Shibsagar, however, wanted to challenge her further. He made her face male players from Bengal’s Ranji team, asking the batsmen to attack her while instructing her to “stop them if you can”. She even helped her family when they faced financial problems before Ishaque landed her the Rs 10 lakh (approx. US$12,000) WPL contract.
“Sher only told me one thing: ‘You focus on the game, I’ll deal with all your problems at home.’ That one thing he said will stay with me forever. Now I always know there is someone in this world who will take care of things so I can just play. He didn’t just say it, he did it too. For that I will always be grateful to him.”
A few months later Ishaque rocked the WPL with her stellar display. She took that form into the 2023-24 domestic season, topping the wickets chart in the Senior Women’s T20 Trophy for Bengal. She was in Lucknow for the zonal matches in November when her phone rang, informing her that she had been added to Team India’s WhatsApp group.
“I couldn’t believe it. I thought, ‘Is this true?'” I called Julu di first thing, then I called Shibu sir. He said, “I told you, just work hard because there’s no one else like you.” Then I called home to tell my mother and sister.”
Ishaque completed an outstanding year, making her ODI and T20I debuts and was also picked in the Test squad. It wasn’t an easy journey to get here, but with determination, skill and a little help along the way, she’s now living her dreams.
With statistics inputs from Sampath Bandarupalli
Vishal Dikshit is an assistant editor at ESPNcricinfo