Shreyanka has arrived & is here to stay

IF one walks into the NICE Cricket Arena at Huttanahalli on a breezy Bengaluru day in June, the jersey no 31 is impossible to miss. Wearing the academy's pink jersey with the number on her back, Shreyanka Patil, more often than not, would be on the top of her mark in one of the open nets.

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While the right leg is rooted to the ground, her left foot is perpendicular to the surface before she gently kisses it with her toes and then goes into her run-up and lets the ball rip with her fingers. It would be spot bowling, match scenarios, depending on what she and her coach Arjun Dev had planned the previous night. It would continue for a while before moving towards fielding and batting sessions till 6.30-7 in the evening with a short break in between for lunch.

Her day starts at the rented house near the academy - to which she shifted, leaving behind the home in the city.

where her family lives - early in the morning with her hitting the gym and ends with cooking dinner and crashing after planning the next day's training. That has been the 21year-old's routine from the day she had moved near the academy to focus on her cricket and work with Arjun. She had trained her mind to this tiring, and to an extent boring, routine with one dream in mind - to wear the blue jersey and play for India.

On Wednesday, that dream came true at the Wankhede Stadium. The figures-2/44- and the result - England beat India by 38 runs - did not go the way Shreyanka and India would have wanted, but she had her moments that would stay with her for the rest of the life.