24-year-old Pratika Rawal, who made her debut against West Indies women on 22 December, has become the 150th capped player of the Indian women’s team. Talking about Pratika Rawal, her journey from studying psychology to playing cricket for Delhi is quite interesting.
Career
But now Rawal has limited her focus on cricket, she has earned the reputation of a big run-scorer in her domestic circuit, who started her career in 2021 by scoring 161 runs in 155 balls for Delhi. The right-handed batsman made a splash in her debut year by scoring 247 runs at an average of 49.50 .
Over the next two years, the Delhi opener scored nearly 1,000 runs, showing her hunger for cricket. In the 2022-23 season, the right-handed batsman scored 552 runs in 14 games, including five half-centuries, and the numbers went up further the following year, scoring 411 runs in 7 innings, including two centuries and two half-centuries, at an average of 68.50.
It was only natural for someone of Rawal’s stature to become a big name in the inaugural edition of the Women’s Delhi Premier League (WPL), where she represented East Delhi Riders. Rawal wowed the crowd with 93 runs in just two matches, the fourth-most in the competition, and added another feather to her cap by captaining Delhi to the final of the 2024 Under-23 T20 Trophy.
In all, the Delhi opener has amassed 1,368 runs at a career average of 54.72 and a strike rate of 75.58, which is steadily rising. In 14 years of cricket, Raval has mastered all the skills. While it is surprising that she made her debut at such a short time, her hunger for runs has put her on the international stage.
