NICE has 70 trainees in all, 30 of them girls, mostly in the 13-16 age bracket. More than a handful have come in from Bijapur, a town in north Karnataka, and Chikmagalur, a hill station popular for its temperate weather and coffee estates.

At training on a weekday, when she would’ve otherwise been at school, is 14-year-old Inchara, an upcoming batter who has gone on to captain Karnataka Under-15s. Seeing her progress, Inchara’s parents have now opted to home-school her, which allows her to train more.

Her fellow trainee Myra, 15, is a fast bowler who became an Instagram sensation a few months ago for bowling with Jasprit Bumrah’s action. Myra was called up by Gujarat Giants for a trial; three other franchises expressed interest and sought more videos.

Arjun Dev and Kiran Uppoor, the academy’s head coaches, have asked her to “enjoy the attention”. They believe she will be ready for bigger things in two years. Inchara and Myra are two of many who believe the WPL has opened pathways that didn’t previously exist.

“I keep joking with Inchara, saying she could be the first player to feature in the WPL before the state Under-19s,” says Dev. “We wanted Inchara’s game to be fully developed by the time she hits the U-19s, even if it means she has one or two years fewer than most others. So we’ve held her back.”

Dev was referring here to the BCCI’s rule that a player can play at the U-19 level for a maximum of four years, even if they are still below the age cutoff at the end of that period. That has meant several girls who show promise at say 14 being taken into the U-19 set-up, but then falling away before they make a real impression because they were brought into the set-up before their game was finely tuned.

Holding a player back, though, requires a buy-in from both the player and their parents. Dev says this has been made possible only because of the WPL’s impact: even if a player gets only two years at the U-19 level, if they perform well enough there, who knows, a WPL scout is probably tracking them…

“At a trial recently, we had 14-year-olds opening and they were 80 for 0 in 5.3 overs, and then they ended up losing two wickets back-to-back. Traditionally, a coach is likely to say, ‘you’ve got so many runs, why did you have to play a shot and get out?’ Our response is to tell them, ‘you don’t stop just because you’ve lost two wickets.'”

Arjun Dev, NICE head coach

“Players are realising now 75 for 3 in eight overs is better than 45 for 0”

“The skill enhancement is starting to come with the WPL,” Sankaran explains. “Example: players are taking their fielding more seriously. They realise simply batting or bowling alone isn’t good enough. Similarly, coaches are also changing their approach – they’re realising there’s no one-size-fits-all approach.

Sankaran, a faculty at BCCI’s Centre of Excellence in Bengaluru, has been part of that change, where coaches are better equipped with things like data and technology to make better cricketing decisions.

“You’ve got numbers, you know that this player is an impactful 20-ball player. How do I position this player? That decision requires the coach to have a lot of information. The evolving T20 game has brought about the change, and the WPL has set the trend.

“Today when Indian coaches look at WPL and see most teams have foreign coaches holding the top position, they wonder what they should do to bridge the cap.”

Dev echoes Sankaran’s views. “At a trial recently, we had 14-year-olds opening and they were 80 for 0 in 5.3 overs, and then they ended up losing two wickets back-to-back. Traditionally, a coach is likely to say, ‘you’ve got so many runs, why did you have to play a shot and get out?’ Our response is to tell them, ‘you don’t stop just because you’ve lost two wickets.’

“In women’s cricket especially, the powerplay is so crucial because the power is still not the same as in the men’s game. They’re not always going to have someone like a Pollard or a Russell coming and hitting five or six sixes to win most times. It’s taken a while to change the mindset but young girls today are more welcoming of this change, where 75 for 3 in 7-8 overs is better than 45 for 0.”

Until now, women’s cricket in India was financially viable only if the player made it to the national team or the handful of back-ups that were given the BCCI’s annual retainers. Even now, domestic cricket is hardly lucrative.

The same attacking mindset extends to the bowling.

“Traditionally, offspinners in domestic cricket bowl with six fielders on the off side. It would result in offspinners having great economy rates, but they wouldn’t pick up wickets. As coaches, we’ve tried to bring in a change,” Dev says. “We emphasise four-five fields. It has made girls realise the value of attacking the stumps a lot more. If the batter misses, you have a chance to pick up a lbw or bowled. It has brought in a different element to the way a bowler thinks about her game.

“It’s nice to see that a lot of younger spinners as well are kind of looking at that and saying, yeah, four or five is probably the way to go for off spinners. And because they’ve seen this in the WPL, where Shreyanka has had a lot of success this way for RCB, there’s a buy-in.”

Training becomes “organised, meaningful, impactful”

This means players still coming through the ranks need to rely on day jobs or other sources of income. Only a select few get a chance to represent the Indian Railways, one of the few organisations that employs women cricketers. But, again, the WPL is changing this.

This potential to keep earning more has also made players mindful of investing back into their games. “When a player gets a [WPL] contract, then she can spend it on herself,” Harmanpreet says. “But before that, domestic cricketers did not earn as much, so it was not fair to expect a lot from them because we weren’t sure how much some players could spend on themselves.

“Since the WPL has arrived, the franchises have also invested in the players. They are holding camps, players are getting to work with different coaches. Thanks to franchise cricket, the good players stay busy throughout the year, play a good standard of cricket, and work with good coaches. All these things have helped players a lot and the game will improve further in the coming years.”

“They work and come because they want to be there”

At 17, inspired by Harmanpreet’s World Cup heroics, Rawal gave up a promising basketball career to play cricket, while also pursuing a degree in psychology in Delhi.

“At that time, I was the only girl at my academy,” she remembers. “It now feels nice that a lot of kids are eager. They want to know how you can excel, the same way I was inquisitive all those years ago.”

Rawal invested in a coach and trainer, primarily to stave off “laziness”. It had a transformative effect on her cricket. She first came into the spotlight in 2021, when she hit an unbeaten 161 off 155 balls to take Delhi to the knockouts of the domestic one-day competition. Earlier this year, she captained Delhi in their unbeaten run to the Under-23 T20 Trophy final.

“I was a lazy person back then,” she says. “So, my routines were not that great. I was struggling a bit. I had gained a lot of weight back then. I was in search of a really good coach. And luckily, I met Deepti Dhyani ma’am. The first thing she told me was ‘trust me and you will be there. But you have to trust me blindly.’

“At that time, I was the only girl at my academy. It now feels nice that a lot of kids are eager. They want to know how you can excel.”

Pratika Rawal

“First, she had to work on my waking-up routines. She worked on my personality. Then I think she worked on my diet. Then she worked on my fitness. We hired a trainer. We started working on things that are in our control. We started to be more consistent in the game. We practiced for long durations. We had sessions till 8 at night. We made gains under lights.

“When I started, my game was restricted to only the leg side, then it got restricted to only off side. So, she has worked in a lot of areas that has now made me an all-round batter. She has also spoken to me about a lot of things in terms of how you process things off the field – like not being picked in WPL.”

In general, Sankaran sees a sea change in the way players approach training these days. This is down to players holding themselves accountable during the off-season. “Earlier they had to merely go by what was being told to them or what they felt. Today we have concrete proof [data] and the minute you have proof and you present it to them, there’s a lot more buy-in. So then they work and come because they want to be there.

“[They think] ‘if I have to be there, sustain my position, I need to do everything that keeps me going. I can no longer sit back, relax and enjoy based on the laurels that I’ve already achieved.’ So the work they put in during the off season is a lot more organised, meaningful and impactful.” And this all stems from wanting to keep, or grow, that WPL contract.