With 'dedication and will power', SB Keerthana gets her dreams back on track

SB Keerthana is a purpose-driven player. After losing almost three to four years to injuries - she is still just 23 - when she was doing well, getting picked by Mumbai Indians in this WPL has reignited the legspinner's hopes of playing cricket at the highest level.

Having been drawn to the sport at a very young age, she represented Tamil Nadu at the Under-16 level at the age of ten and quickly moved from Under-19 to Under-23 and then the senior side. However, life slowed down for Keerthana a year before the pandemic. At 18, she featured in the Senior Women's Challenger Trophy in 2018-19 and was playing alongside the likes of Sneh Rana and Renuka Singh. But, soon after the season, she had knee and ankle injuries back-to-back - ACL, LSL, meniscus tear - and a few years were lost just doing a lot of rehabilitation and recovery. Though Keerthana kept playing tournaments with these injuries, the results weren't enough for the take-off she was aiming for.

"Your career peaks from the age of 19 to 25," Keerthana told ESPNcricinfo. "I led India Red in the Challenger Trophy at the Under-19 level, Under-23 level, and the senior level. I was there in the limelight [2018-2019 season]. But after the injury, I was off the radar. Only in the last two seasons I have been injury-free.

"In cricket, if you go off the radar, it's very difficult to come back because it's a competitive game. You know you are replaceable. For me, to make that comeback, it took a lot of mental strength."

Now, to be able to share a dressing room with a star like Amelia Kerr - who is the same age as her - Keerthana had to undergo several changes. This included having a dairy-free and gluten-free diet, shedding two to three kilograms by focusing on strength and conditioning workouts and, as a result, feeling lighter on the run-up.

In the initial days, she trained under Sundar, India allrounder Washington Sundar's father, at Wesley Higher Secondary School in Chennai, before moving to MAC Spin Academy to be coached by Peter Fernandez. Sometime in 2019-2020, she sought the help of TS Mukund, father of former Tamil Nadu - and India - opener Abhinav Mukund, to work on her variations and ball speed.

"After the injury, she was very slow," Mukund said. "She had the talent even in 2015. Having known her from a young age, I found her good for her slinging action. A few years ago, I met her somewhere and asked her to come to the Mylapore Club. She was not able to turn the ball either way, googly or legspin, she was just bowling straight.

"I had to fine-tune a few things - from the run-up to her bowling action to the placement of the leg. She used to come to the academy at 5.30am and bowl for an hour-and-a-half without a break to the Under-19 boys. She did the same drill for more than an hour in the afternoon to rectify her errors. This routine went on for six days during off season as well.

"She was almost on the verge of breaking down because of the strenuous drills we had after the injury. But she had the dedication and willpower."

Hailing from a middle-class joint family that had great enthusiasm for cricket, Keerthana used to accompany her cousin and father - Balakrishnan, who owns a taxi business - to the ground to "get some physical activity done because my father was keen on it". Growing up in the lanes of Triplicane - a locality that's merely a kilometre from Chepauk - her exposure to cricket was not limited. She was immediately fascinated with spin bowling.

Cut to last year…

Technical fine-tuning aside, she had a major learning curve when the former Middlesex cricketer Tom Scollay spoke about the importance of mental conditioning in a seminar conducted by Mukund in Chennai.

"I got a great perspective on life after Scollay's interactive session," Keerthana said. "Not everybody touches upon the emotional part of an athlete while speaking on mental conditioning... how you can't control people's expectations while going through a lean patch. He also explained how emotions can help you improve in your cricket. Even we have certain expectations of ourselves, but when the performances don't match our expectations, how do you handle yourself, mentally and emotionally. About expectations from coaches and people around us. I learnt how to accept failure during a low phase from him. This realisation has helped me move forward tremendously."

All those learnings were viewed in tangible terms in the domestic circuit very soon. In the Senior Women's T20 Trophy last November, Keerthana picked up 12 wickets in seven games at an economy rate of 5.40, finishing as the joint-fifth-highest wicket-taker. In the Senior Women's One-Day Trophy that was held in January, she took 14 wickets in seven matches at an economy of 3.24. A week before the auction in December, she was called for trials by Mumbai Indians. After going unsold initially, she was bought by the franchise for INR 10 lakh in the final round of the accelerated auction.

"Everyone was calling my father, and not me, to congratulate after the news came out," she said with a laugh. "The only thing I had in mind was, 'I have to grab this opportunity and use this platform to move to a higher level'. I also realised that, somewhere, your hard work will pay off. There's a saying, 'What's meant for you will find its way'. I started to believe strongly in this phrase after getting picked in the WPL."

Being a part of the title-winning squad that also has the likes of Jhulan Goswami, Charlotte Edwards and Kiran More in the support staff, Keerthana wants to just utilise the tournament to gather as much knowledge as possible.

"There's so much to learn from players on their work ethics and how they approach the game, mentally too. When you have someone like Amelia Kerr in the squad, who has done so much for New Zealand cricket, being at your age, I feel I have so much to learn to move up the ladder."

Only time will tell if Keerthana can progress to the next level, but for an optimist like her, the WPL spot is a reminder that it can happen.