In a COVID-delayed 2020-21 domestic season, Shubha Satheesh came out to bat for Karnataka against Tamil Nadu in a one-day fixture. She began her innings with a glorious drive through the offside. A couple of years later, she would replicate that shot and that picture of poise and power for the Indian national team, and more importantly, in Test whites.
Coming in after Smriti Mandhana lost her stumps to Lauren Bell, Shubha got down on one knee and sent the ball running through cover with a textbook drive to get her first international runs.
“To back yourself to do that on the second ball of an innings, to be that confident is a mark of a fantastic player,” former Tamil Nadu coach Aarti Sankaran tells Sportstar.
Shubha Satheesh with Jemimah Rodrigues. The duo have come through the ranks of U19 cricket together and even share an interest in hockey. | Photo Credit: Sportzpics for BCCI
Shubha isn’t as generous with words as she is with runs. Her first reaction to a stupendous opening page in the book of her international career was that she is “out of words”.
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“I am a fortunate cricketer because I didn’t set out to become one. I got opportunities and went with it. It’s an amazing feeling, so much is happening all at once,” she said at the end of day one of the one-off Test against England where she scored a visually delightful 76-ball 69.
Solid beginnings
Shubha hails from Mysore and was only three years into playing cricket when that iconic Test against South Africa happened in her city. She played a number of team sports, anything her school had a team in, and finally settled on cricket as the sport to pursue professionally.
Coach Sankaran’s earliest memory of the Karnataka opener dates back to 2016 when she first saw her at a Zonal Cricket Academy camp.
“She impressed me with her energy on the field. She is a medium pacer and a top-order bat and took immense pride in working on herself to get better. In 2016, I saw her again when Tamil Nadu played Karnataka in Hyderabad for an Inter State South Zone fixture and she scored a blistering hundred. Even though she was an opponent then, it was hard not to appreciate what was on display,” Sankaran says.
At the time, she remembers thinking there was something about the player but her runs were not enough to push her to the next level. She eventually amassed 1275 List A runs for Karnataka in 50 innings, including 10 half centuries, and 653 runs in T20s with three fifties in the mix.
“When she was in the probables for this series, I told her that I wish to see her in the India Blues,” Sankaran exclaims.
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A tactical masterstroke
Shubha’s chance to make an impression on selectors and the senior team’s think tank came recently when India had practice games between squads for this series in Bengaluru. Incidentally, in that game, Shubha made 99 and was dismissed by Jemimah Rodrigues, someone she has known since her time in the U-19 setup.
“Her style of play is dipped in confidence and she is extremely mature. She knows to tackle situations very well and how to switch between aggressor and anchor as the situation demands it,” Sankaran points out.
Given Shubha’s natural affinity to the longer formats, Sankaran believes that she could find no better mentor than India head coach Amol Muzumdar to guide her through the demands. A domestic stalwart with more than 11,000 List A runs to his name, Muzumdar has been a part of a Mumbai side that has defined dominance in the Ranji scene for several years.
Shubha Satheesh of India walks back to the pavilion after getting out during day one of the first test match between India Women and England Women held at the D Y Patil stadium, Navi Mumbai on the 14th December 2023 | Photo Credit: Sportzpics for BCCI
“If you look at the shot she got out to, it looked like there was a tinge of nervousness there, tentativeness even. If it came from a lapse of focus or overthinking the response to the ball, Amol can help her in figuring out how best to respond to such situations,” Sankaran says.
Shubha, like other women who play cricket, is possibly used to thinking about games 40-50 overs at a time, because that’s the longest an innings goes on for in the ecosystem. Tests require your horizons to widen beyond that bracket.
“As much as you’ve prepared, after the 40th over, is there a thought that acceleration should come up? That might be something she and anyone else here might have, and a point to work on for the side too in general,” she adds.
As a coach, Sankaran knows what Shubha brings to the table, especially in the Indian setup, as a left-hander.
“Sophie Ecclestone is a huge threat. To counter someone like her, you need left-handers. They can use the tricks Ecclestone employs with bounce to their advantage. By playing four, India minimised her threat massively and they brought in Charlie Dean before her, which might have shaken up their initial strategy,” Sankaran postulates.
Talent here, opportunity where?
Shubha’s surety and technical acumen make her a hot favourite for the Test against Australia that begins right after the ongoing one. A potential matchup pits Shubha against a shorter pacer like Darcie Brown. Given her height, Brown’s bouncers will pose harder challenges for Shubha given she’ll take them closer to her body too. However, Sankaran believes these technicalities are secondary.
“The whole Australian attitude is the hardest to play against. Their aggression can be as intimidating. But Shubha is just as aggressive and she doesn’t get intimidated that easily, as is there for all to see. She’s someone who will go back and work on the pull shot and the short ball and perfect it for the next opponent in line,” Sankaran adds.
Discoveries like Shubha, particularly in a format not played too often, pose unique existential questions to the game and the systems that run it. Sankaran believes that talents like Shubha can be the proof of concept needed to encourage red ball cricket across levels and that the domestic framework doesn’t need to wait for the international game to set the pace.
“It’s not enough to have more international Tests. You need a domestic setup that also prepares you for the same. Performances like what we saw today definitely make a case for red ball cricket to return at the domestic level. Not all players need to be all format players,” she says.
“In the constant desire to make women’s cricket more exciting and entertaining for the audience, which sees white ball cricket incentivised as much as it is, are we missing out on a fantastic format? That’s a question we must ask ourselves,” Sankaran adds.
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