Long before Tanuja Kanwer was throwing shade at the biggest names in international cricket at the Women’s Premier League, she was an ambitious sports-loving kid growing up in Himachal Pradesh.
Badminton and volleyball were Tanuja’s choice of sports in school.
“I even gave trials in volleyball, but I didn’t have the height to continue in the sport. The coaches would always tell me that I didn’t have the height,” Tanuja, representing Gujarat Giants in the WPL, told Sportstar on the sidelines of the league’s second edition.
“I would play cricket with my siblings and in school. My father saw my interest in the game and enrolled me in an academy,” she added. There was no turning back on the sport from there.
Vertical limits
The now 26-year-old had her father’s unconditional support as she meandered through the turns of the sport. Her journey also passed through the Himachal Cricket Academy.
A height of five feet is not one you would associate with a pace bowler. Tanuja’s coaches early on did not either, which eventually paved the way for her to discover her talents as a tweaker.
“I started as a medium pacer. We used to play with a Cosco ball. At that time, all of us medium pacers began trying out spin, too. My coach then, Pavan sir, told me to switch to spin because my height wasn’t as much to successfully bowl as a pacer. So, I too began bowling spin. Because of my height, I wouldn’t get as much pace, so when I switched to spin, I started getting more wickets and as a result, enjoyed the game also a lot more,” she remembered.
In 2011, Tanuja broke into the U-19 state team. Consistent performances in the domestic circuit earned her India A call-ups against Australia and Bangladesh over the years. She was a crucial part of India’s triumph in the ACC Emerging Teams Asia Cup in Colombo, taking four wickets in the final.
In 2022, a year before the WPL would take shape, Tanuja had an encouraging season. She was the joint second-highest wicket-taker for Railways in the 2022 Senior Women’s T20 Trophy with eight wickets in the bag. She was also part of the victorious Central Zone side in the Senior Inter Zonal T20 Cup. Her One-Day campaign with the Railways also paid rich dividends, with Tanuja finishing with 18 wickets and an impressive 2.43 economy rate in 11 innings.
Standout talent
The coaches in the Giants set-up saw the value in investing in a player of such calibre and roped her in during the auction for Rs. 50 Lakh, an improvement on her Rs.10 Lakh base price.
Tanuja proved to be good value for money in an otherwise bleak season for the Giants. The franchise finished at the bottom, but Tanuja, who took the first-ever wicket in the WPL when she dismissed Yastika Bhatia, was just getting started.
She ended the season with five wickets to her name but was quickly identified by the think tank as a talent to build foundations with. She was retained ahead of the auction for the 2024 season.
In the runup to WPL 2024, Tanuja took nine wickets in six outings in the Senior Women’s One-Day trophy, part of a title-winning Railways outfit. This campaign also saw her score a nifty 57-ball 44 in a two-wicket win against Madhya Pradesh.
“We had camps, week-long camps here and there. When Railways duty ended, we had small GG camps for the domestic players. There was a mix of fitness and skill work in these camps,” she explained.
“After last year’s stint in the WPL, I realised it’s important to round myself out in bowling as well as batting, and I worked on that. I worked on the power-hitting aspect, which was essential. This was alongside the variations I worked on with the ball,” she added.
While the franchise itself encountered the same fate this time around too, finishing last, Tanuja bettered her showing with the ball, finishing with ten wickets. She was a firebrand on the field and was heavily appreciated for her aggression and quick thinking with the ball. Her wicket haul was also the second-best by an Indian uncapped player (after Asha Sobhana, who claimed 12).
Checklist for the season
Tanuja came into the season with a lot of unfinished business. Last year, during a game against Royal Challengers Bangalore (which RCB won by eight wickets), Tanuja was taken to the cleaners by Sophie Devine. She finished that game after conceding 50 runs in three overs with no wickets for consolation.
So when Tanuja dismissed Devine with a stunning turner, knocking the off stump’s bail after Devine came down the track to get a bat on it, she was over the moon.
“ I took a lot of beating from her last season, and that stayed in my mind. Dismissing her was very satisfying,” she admitted.
“Last year, when I went back home from the WPL, folks around my house, neighbours and friends would tell me that they felt really bad when I was hit for a four or six. I loved that when they said they want only wickets when I bowl.”
She licked her wounds in training, finetuning her strong points and adding a few tricks to her repertoire.
“There weren’t too many technical changes. I added a slower one and a yorker to my arsenal. First, I would rely solely on my stock ball. But adding these variations helped me a lot this season,” Tanuja explained.
The Shimla-born cricketer, over the past two seasons, has been skipper Beth Mooney’s go-to resource in strife, a mood the Giants have found themselves in far too often. These situations have allowed her to come into her own as a thinking cricketer.
Stepping up
“She’s competitive and knows what she wants,” Mooney said about the bowler. “Sometimes we have a few little arguments on the field about what field to set… but if I could pick one player in India to have on my team, it’s probably her.”
Tanuja also understands the value of rubbing shoulders with international veterans.
“When I played the last season, I learnt a lot from the India internationals and the foreign players. Once I got back after the season, I realised that the level of the WPL was quite high, and I wanted to up my game. I played domestic only after that, but the lessons I took from there helped me step up a bit,” she explained.
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“The WPL is a massive platform for domestic players because we have not experienced anything like this before in our lives. Usually, a player would move from the domestic level straight to the international stage, and it took that call up for us to gain better experience. Here, this is a nice bridge where we get that experience of high-quality cricket against the best in the world.”
This benefit was something her family got to see first-hand when they came down to New Delhi to watch Tanuja play.
“I told my folks that they were lucky for us because we won that match. This was the first time they watched a game in the stadium,” she gushed, speaking about the win over RCB.
“When my siblings would watch me on TV and if I had dropped a catch or let the ball pass through, they’d tell me, “ Arey yaar, yeh kya kiya? Itna toh hum bhi pakad lenge.” (What did you do? Even we could have taken that catch) When they finally watched a match live, they told me that it was not right of them to say that. This is so much harder than it looks,” she stated.
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Being a left-arm spinner and one who can hold her own in a fairly star-studded team and against high-profile achievers in the ecosystem, Tanuja has made a case for trusting her with a spot in the national team. Her captain, Mooney, hopes to go up against her in national colours sooner rather than later.
“She bowls left-arm spin, which is pretty effective here, and she bowls the really tough overs. I throw her in the deep end, and she loves it,” Mooney said. “I can’t speak more highly of her, and hopefully, one day, we see her in an India shirt.”
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