da prosport bet： There’s a BBA degree to complete, but cricket’s the priority right now for unlikely WPL auction star Vrinda Dinesh

da bet sport： Shashank Kishore09-Dec-2023The Karnataka Under-23 nets session in Raipur resembled a party for a while on Saturday afternoon, soon after Vrinda Dinesh earned a massive payday at the Women’s Premier League (WPL) auction. She started at a base price of INR 10 lakh, and three teams went all guns blazing before UP Warriorz landed the final bid of INR 1.3 crore, making her the second most expensive buy at the 2024 auction.Vrinda, who was bowling at the time, first had an inkling that “something big” had happened when she spotted her team-mate Shishira Gowda whispering something to team analyst Mala Rangaswamy. And then, before Vrinda realised, the entire Karnataka team had huddled around to greet her.”We were actually training; I was bowling, and I heard my team-mate (Gowda) whispering to another colleague of ours saying, ‘They got her for 1.30.’ I jumped in and asked, ‘What! 1.3 lakh?’ She said ‘nope’,” Vrinda told ESPNcricinfo from Raipur, where she’s representing Karnataka at the Women’s Under-23 one-day competition.Related

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“I also kind of knew 1.3 lakh was impossible. Then I was like, ‘What? 1.3 crore?’ She was like, ‘yeah’. Then, suddenly, everyone, batters who were batting, the keeper, everyone ran towards me and hugged me for a long time. Everyone was genuinely very happy. It felt great to have such team-mates around.”Back home in Bengaluru, her parents were watching TV excitedly. Vrinda’s younger sister, a trained classical Bharatanatyam dancer, had requested their father to pick her up early from college so she could join the rest of the family to follow the auction.”My aunts, cousins, grandparents, all of them were watching it together,” Vrinda said. “I actually thought I’d return to the hotel and check my phone, but it just kept ringing. There was a point where I had to answer. I called my parents, they were so happy, they even had a few tears. It makes me so happy that they are happy. My team-mates have asked me for a big treat, I’ve promised them one.”The price Vrinda went for must have surprised many, but there was little doubt that she would be picked. In June, she had been invited for trials by all five franchises. A few of the scouts contracted to these franchises had seen Vrinda play a blinder in the final of the ACC emerging tournament in Hong Kong for the India Under-23s in June.Interestingly, Vrinda wasn’t a first-choice pick in that squad, and was only called up after fast bowler S Yashasri was ruled out because of an injury. The chances of her featuring in the final seemed remote, until a quirk of fate handed her an opportunity.When batter Muskan Malik’s kit didn’t arrive at the ground, Vrinda made the cut, and she responded with a gutsy 29-ball 36 in a low-scoring match on a sluggish surface. It not only proved to be a match-winning effort against a strong Bangladesh side, but had far-reaching consequences, since the knock was followed by scouts who eventually shortlisted her name for the trials later in the month. Prior to that, she was the third-highest run-getter for Karnataka in the senior women’s domestic one-day competition, making 477 runs in 11 innings.

“My dad always asked me to study and play. I’m yet complete my degree, but he understands cricket takes a lot more time than he expected. He’s okay with me and supports all my decisions. And I need that to go forward. I just have some backlog exams to finish”Vrinda Dinesh

“Once we finished with the emerging camp in May-June, the India Under-23 team was announced and I didn’t get picked,” Vrinda recalled. “I didn’t have the heart to unpack because I had a strong feeling that I had to be there. Then, midway through the tournament, I got a call from the manager. He said, ‘you might be travelling – either it’s going to be a vacation [in the Bangalore hotel] or you will join us in Hong Kong for the next game.'”And the day I got called up, I was practicing. I quickly went back home, packed, and left. The next two games were called off and the night before the final, I couldn’t sleep. I hadn’t had a single training session, I’d only seen the ground, it was muddy and wickets were always covered.”On match day, when I was actually in the XI, I was anxious. Just before walking in to bat, I told myself, ‘You’ve trained so long, you know what to do, just be brave’. I enjoyed every minute of it. I enjoyed fielding, [and] in the end, when we lifted that trophy, it was an amazing feeling. I ended up getting both the holiday and the title win. We went to Disneyland in Hong Kong for a team outing, so yeah, I enjoyed the best of both worlds on that trip.”A hard-hitting top-order batter, Vrinda began playing seriously in 2014, as a 12-year-old, when her father enrolled her for a summer camp at the Karnataka Institute of Cricket. Later that year, she registered for the state trials and would soon make the Under-19 probables as a 13-year-old. It was when she was “16 or 17” that she decided cricket was what she would pursue. Vrinda had been “woken up” by Harmanpreet Kaur’s epic 171 in the World Cup semi-final in 2017.”My father, cousin, uncle – they have all played cricket, but I’m the only one to have taken it forward,” Brinda said. “I first started off at a summer camp in 2014. In September that year, my friend called to tell me there were Under-19 trials for women, so I registered for it, and got picked into the probables and made the state team. I realised at 16-17 that I was going to take the sport seriously, by then I’d played three years of state cricket. I met my coach Kiran Uppar in 2018-19; that was the turning point for me. It’s been five years now. I’m grateful to have found a coach like him.”2:21

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Vrinda and Shreyanka Patil are trainees at the NICE Academy in Bengaluru. She spends upwards of three hours on the road to get to training and back, but the sacrifices, she says, are worth it. “My travel from home to the academy is 45 kilometres every day, I spend hours together in traffic. Our academy has always given me everything I need. Centre-wicket practice, quick bowlers, turf nets any day, any time. Sometimes I bat till 6.30 in the evening, so late that groundsmen wait for me. Sometimes before a tour, if I need to practice, they prepare wickets for me. I sacrifice everything around my cricket to be able to go there and give my heart out. Coaches throw some 100 balls, they never complain. I’m so grateful to be able to do this.”Vrinda is also trying to set aside time to complete her business-administration degree. She has completed the course from the Bishop Cotton Women’s Christian College in Bengaluru, but has a number of exams to complete within a year.”My dad always asked me to study and play. I’m yet complete my degree, but he understands cricket takes a lot more time than he expected,” she said. “He’s okay with me and supports all my decisions. And I need that to go forward. I just have some backlog exams to finish.”Cricket and travel leave Vrinda little time to pursue other hobbies. But she isn’t complaining. “On an off day, the best thing for me is to have a relaxed family breakfast and then spend the rest of the day playing with my two dogs. It’s that simple a life. Nothing really changes.”On her immediate agenda are runs, a chance to play with Alyssa Healy, and, of course, organising the treat for her Karnataka team-mates.