Spice Girls

In the once nondescript villages of Wayanad, cricket is no longer just a sport. It has become a way to dream and to rise above the limits of geography, poverty and custom

- By N.K. Bhoopesh

TILL two years ago, I worked wherever work was found—sometimes in the fields, sometimes at construction sites. Now my daughter scolds us if we even talk about stepping out into the sun for work. Life has changed so completely that I still cannot understand it. How did we reach a place where we no longer have to go out every day in search of work?”

The astonishment had not left Vasantha Mani's face. She spoke as if the change were still unfolding before her eyes—how a game had bent the course of their lives for the better, carrying her daughter beyond the boundaries of their village, to places no one there had once thought possible.

When we reached her house in Chooyimoola, in Wayanad, Vasantha had just finished speaking to Minnu Mani—the tribal girl who has since become one of the most visible faces of Indian women's cricket. When we visited the village, Minnu was far away in Vadodara, playing in the Women's Premier League for the Delhi Capitals.

“From a very young age, she played with the boys. I scolded her many times for that,” she said. “At school, she tried her hand at many games, but then we didn't even know what cricket was. Whatever little we knew, we believed it was meant for boys. We never wanted Minnu to play cricket.”

Everything shifted in the eighth standard. “Elsamma teacher called to say that Minnu had got admission into a cricket academy in Thodupuzha, in Idukki. Only then did we realise that she was already playing the game,” she recalls.