Karnataka's Shubha Satheesh Makes Seamless Transition From Domestic To International Cricket

From getting dismissed by long-time friend Jemimah Rodrigues on 99 to making Test debut, it has been a seamless transition from domestic to international cricket for Karnataka's Shubha Satheesh who shone with the bat on the first day of India Women's one-off Test against England in Navi Mumbai on Thursday. It has been a whirlwind couple of weeks or so for the 24-year-old from Mysore, who began playing at the age of 12 without any specific aim of becoming an India cricketer. But the journey, which she terms as a ‘process', took another 12 years before she found herself donning the Indian Test cap.

In a span of one week, Shubha has got a call-up from the Royal Challengers Bangalore for the Women's Premier League besides making her Test debut. She also became the 12th Indian batter to have scored a fifty on debut.

Her innings eventually ended at 69 off 76 balls with the help of 13 fours, an aggressive knock to say the least, but it did not surprise her mentor Rajath Sathish back home in Mysore.

“From the start, she has been a confident girl. Every time she goes to bat, she plays aggressively,” Sathish told PTI on Thursday.

“She started cricket in the 2014-15 batch. From there onwards, after three-four years, she played for Karnataka under-19 and under-23 and (then the) senior team,” he added.

Sathish revealed that in Mysore cricket circles, Shubha is fondly known as ‘Dada', which is nothing related to former India captain Sourav Ganguly but is associated with the late Kannada movie actor Vishnuvardhan.

“We call her ‘Dada' in Mysore. She used to follow Vishnuvardhan, the film actor. (In fact) her role model is Vishnuvardhan,” he said.

Shubha's father, who is now retired having worked at Bharat Earth Movers Limited, could