It was not just captain Mithali Raj and the coach Purnima Rau who ensured that there was the Hyderabadi touch when Indian women’s cricket scripted a piece of history -- beating Aussies for the first time in a T-20 series recently. There was another woman from the city, 33-year-old Aarti Nalge, who was the performance analyst and with no lesser role in the scheming the downfall of the formidable Aussies.
“It was a dream assignment which gave me a lot of confidence and I am glad that I was part of history,” says a delighted Aarti on return from Australia in a chat with The Hindu .
“It was an exciting, behind the scenes job for me. I used to share all the videos – past and present with the captain and the coach who in turn shared the inputs with the team members,” she recalls. “The backgrounder against Aussies seems to have been very handy for the Indians as all their past videos helped our cricketers know something about them and accordingly plan out the strategies,” says Aarti, who left a lucrative job in a software company to pursue this passion.
This former all-rounder who played for Hyderabad till 2003 insists that the experience at Melbourne Cricket Ground was fabulous. “Yes, it was a dream for me to be out there and more so with an Indian team which won the game. It was a completely different and unforgettable experience,” recalled Aarti.
“The fact that we stayed back after our T-20 games to watch Dhoni’s team outplay Aussies was all the more memorable except at Melbourne when we had to leave in a hurry to fly to another city,” she said. “Yes, I was personally thrilled to see senior BCCI officials Dr. M.V. Sridhar (general manager - operations) and B.V.P. Rao come to Mumbai airport and greeted us on our return. It was such a wonderful gesture indeed,” she said.
What next? “One of the goals, if I can say, is to be associated with the IPL and also be there with the Indian team in the T-20 World Cup which we are hosting and see the Indian team finish on top,” she says with a big smile. Clearly, Aarti, daughter of HCA curator Datta Nalge, is pleased that she is getting a feel being there with the Indian team if not in the playing eleven.
