Do you know what’s a common theme amongst all superheroes? They live dual lives, one vastly different from the other but they still excel at both. Take Superman for example, his alter ego Clarke Kent is a journalist for the Daily Planet and an ultra strong superhero when things get rough. Similarly, Bruce Wayne (Batman) is a billionaire playboy who is a cape crusader at night. In the real world, being a superhero as showcased in comics may be impossible, but every now and again, you will cross paths with an individual who is as close to a ‘real’ superhero as there can be.
In this exclusive interview with SPOGO, Ms. Anuradha Doddaballapur, captain of Germany’s womens’ cricket team and a cardiovascular scientist speaks about balancing her two roles, creating history, overcoming challenges, coaching experiences, future goals and more!
Q 1) When were you first introduced to cricket and what motivated you to take up the sport professionally?
This goes back a long time, like every other kid growing up in India you are exposed to a lot of cricket either playing with your neighbours or friends on the street in the backyard along with watching a lot of cricket on TV and that's how I started. I wouldn't say professionally but a bit more seriously, I had a friend who used to play for the Karnataka side and she kind of lured me into going into a few training sessions and that's how I got introduced to a more formal coaching or training setup which was around 1998 or 99 and that's how it started and there was no looking back since.
Q 2) As the German women’s cricket team captain and a cardiovascular scientist, how do you balance the two and excel at both?
It's difficult most of the time, because you have only 24 hours to do both in a day but I'm equally passionate about both – what I'm doing professionally in terms of scientific research and cricket also has been a part of my life for almost two decades. You just have to make time, it gets hard because you have a full time job which is not necessarily a 9-5 one, it's a lot more demanding. Cricket almost seeps into every bit of spare time outside what I do at work so it's mostly weekends or training after work. It's hard but you have to try and make time. Excelling in both, I think that's a bit more relative. There are phases where you are good at one and not so much at the other but it depends on how much time you can dedicate for both. So far things have been going well and I'm very grateful for that.
Q 3) You’re the first female cricketer in the history of international cricket to take four wickets off four balls. How proud are you of that accomplishment?
I am very proud, I think it's a nice statistic to have, being the first in anything is always very special and I'm glad that I got to share it with the team. We were playing in Austria and it changed a lot of things for us as a team in terms of recognition and putting German Cricket on the map and the visibility we got through, that is great as I always say that tour was really exceptional for us. There were so many records made from the girls in our team and mine just happens to be one of those. It's a bit bizarre now thinking about it, everything that followed and the impact that it has had, it's been pretty cool and very special.
Q 4) What are some of the challenges that you faced as a female cricketer looking to pursue the sport in a country where cricket is not popular?
I think the challenges – not as a female cricketer but as a cricketer in a place where it isn’t so popular – all come down to poor infrastructure at club levels or regional levels. I’ve played cricket in India and in England and if I was to compare them to Germany it isn’t anywhere close. We lack access to good facilities, so if you really want to be an elite player and put in the hours, access to facilities and coaches is still on the rise.
As athletes, the visibility of the sport and the recognition of cricket as a proper sport is probably only catching up now. We are always explaining what cricket is to the locals and I hope that changes in the years to come. Personally, now that I am involved in the administrative aspect of everything and having coached my local team I feel that for me as a player it is challenging for me to find time and work on my own game. I end up volunteering a lot in my spare time for the development of the game, so that is a challenge I face more on a personal level. The development gets hampered a little bit.
Q 5) What led you to create the Frankfurt Women’s Cricket team in 2015? How has the experience of coaching been so far?
It has been great so far and a journey on it’s own. When I moved to Frankfurt, there was no women’s team at the club that I’m currently playing. I played in the men’s league for a few years and the closest women's team was in Cologne, so I would travel and play the matches with them but practice with the men’s side here and play in the league. I think at a point in time I just thought, might as well think of developing and starting a women’s team.
There were two of us here in Frankfurt playing a little bit with the national squad. We took that up as a development project and I’ve been involved with that ever since. I double up as the development officer at the club, so I’m into recruiting players, promoting the sport, organising events and fixtures. Along with that once we had players there had to be someone to coach and train them and there were no coaches hired by the club, so all of that too came with the job of starting a team. Over the course of time I got my qualifications. I am currently studying my ECB level-3.
It’s been a great experience and it's something we learn continuously as a coach, having to catch up with methodology so we know how to work with people and how you develop players holistically, forming your own coaching philosophy. It’s been a very interesting journey and I’m enjoying that. It’s amazing but a bit of a challenge as I said earlier about being an active player and also the captain of the national team, there are a lot of responsibilities.
I am not the only one doing everything by myself. There are a couple other girls who are active players and take up coaching as well. We do our best to grow the game and give back and for me I’d say in the last few years I’ve gained so much from cricket over the last two decades. Over time there was a switch where I felt I needed to give back more to the game, so for me coaching and working as a development officer has been a great opportunity to realize that.
With the set up that we have now at Frankfurt in the past 5 or 6 years, we've had some great results as well. Over time we've had some 60-70 girls and women who are now part of the club, either training with us or playing in the league with us, involved in some way or other which is great for a club that has existed for 40 years and had no women’s section. I'm very proud of the opportunities we’ve been able to create. We now have 4-5 girls from here who represent the national team. We have also won a few indoor championships some 2-3 years in a row. We were runner’s up in the last Bundesliga that happened, so it bore fruit and that is very rewarding for all the effort that we have put in. I am really happy that there are so many young girls and women now that can take up the sport and enjoy it as much as I do and as much as so many of us do. It’s heartwarming to see what has come out of it all.
Q 6) What are your goals and aspirations for the future? How do you plan to achieve them?
As the current captain of the national squad I’d love to see our team do better. We’ve been doing fantastic in the last two years and I hope we keep that up. The performance, development and everything else that we do together, I hope it all grows into something positive. We are currently 25th in the world rankings and T20s are the only matches we play as of now. I want to see us in the top 10-15 ranking. It’s a big ask, so we have to go in close cooperation with the board and what they bring to the table in terms of funding and infrastructure and how often we can play games. Right now, we are playing the regional qualifiers in the European division. In the next few years I want us to top that and play in the global event as well. I would love to see that for the team.
Individually as a player, I'm always hungry to perform better everytime I take to the field, so I want to churn out more and more good performances for the squad. I think it would be awesome to see any of the German players in any of the female franchise cricket tournaments that are happening currently on the globe. That would be a great opportunity and it’s a long wait before we reach that level. We have to do more for the visibility of the sport, for the players and the commitments that they have shown over the years. I think they do deserve opportunities like that so that would be great to see.
All of our national players are doing very well and setting a great standard for other people that want to take up the sport. I think I say on behalf of the team when I say we want to inspire more young girls and women in Germany to play the sport. Hopefully we are able to make cricket a household name here. We’ll see how we achieve that and a lot of it depends on infrastructure and funding for the sport. Most people who play cricket in Germany have to volunteer to do the development work and so there are a lot of time constraints. How great would it be if in the next few years, players could take cricket up professionally and do very well? I would love that.
