Rajeshwari Gayakwad: Class is permanent

Saksham Mishra
09 September, 2022
2 mins ago

Rajeshwari Gayakwad is one of the best spinners in Indian women's cricket.

Rising competition

Of late, she has got a lot of competition from the likes of Deepti Sharma, Sneh Rana, Radha Yadav and others but is still in the mix.

Rajeshwari Gayakwad dished out some impressive performances for India in the ODI World Cup. She was part of the team's starting XI in the 2022 Commonwealth Games as well, but after giving away 24 runs against Australia in the opening fixture of the competition without picking up a wicket, she was benched for the remaining four matches of the competition including the semi-final against England and the final against Australia.

Heart-breaking WC loss

Here, she shares her experience of the heart-breaking loss in the 2017 ODI WC final.

"On the day of the final, we all were excited and it was a proud moment for all of us. We all played well but lost to the host with a small margin of 9 runs. We were in a winning position until 200 runs. Due to quickly losing wickets, we lost the final match. Winning and losing are a part of the game. On the 23rd night, we did not sleep, and our dressing room had pin drop silence. Our coach Tushar Arothe entered the room with a smile on his face and tried to motivate us. He told us, 'you all have played well in World Cup 2017 and don't worry about losing this match'. It gave us some sort of motivation."

Truth be told, Rajeshwari Gayakwad is better suited to the longer format of the game. She has a lot of guile and loop about her bowling. In ODI cricket as well, there are patches when the opposition is not looking to take a lot of risks, and that is when Rajeshwari Gayakwad is at her best.

Frazzled by shot-making

When the batters start to get aggressive against her, she sometimes finds herself in trouble and needs to add a few variations to her arsenal to stop run scoring.

Be that as it may, Rajeshwari Gayakwad is a world-class player. You don't pick up close to 100 ODI wickets by a fluke, and she is expected to make a strong return to the Indian team.