Life imitates art as UAE's Theertha Satish gets ready to play alongside cricket stars

It is difficult to know which is more far-fetched: real life, or the movie which inspired it.

This week, Theertha Satish will take a break from her studies to play in a cricket tournament which will be broadcast across the world.

She will be sharing the dressing room at Dubai International Stadium with stars of the world game like England’s Danni Wyatt, New Zealander Suzie Bates and Sri Lanka’s Chamari Athapaththu.

Which might be a touch daunting, were she not taking such enviable form into the event. The left-handed batter has been a prolific component of a UAE national side that is on a run of 14 consecutive wins in T20 cricket – the longest ongoing streak in the international game at present. Theertha herself has yet to experience defeat in international cricket.

And all this, despite the fact that she had not even played cricket at all as recently as three years ago.

She took up the sport after watching Kanaa, a Tamil-language movie in which the protagonist tries her hand at cricket to make her father, who is a farmer, proud – and ends up representing India in a World Cup.

“The farmer is very passionate about the sport and his daughter decides to take it up, while her mother is actually very worried about it,” Theertha explained.

“She doesn’t want her to move forward with it. Her dad supports her and eventually her mother gives in, and they go and let her play.”

England captain Heather Knight will lead Barmy Army in the FairBreak Invitational tournament in Dubai. Photo: FairBreak Global

Which is not exactly like her own home life. Both her mum Rathna, who is an architect, and dad Satish Selanambi, a finance professional, have been fully supportive of her pursuing cricket in the past two years. Even if her dad is the