Pratika Rawal, a Rubik's cube mastermind?
ESPNcricinfo staff
22-Sep-2025 • 1 hr ago
Pratika Rawal: she can also bat • SLC
India opener Pratika Rawal is only 25 but she is clearly a woman of many sporting talents, starting with the Rubik's cube. She breaks down the first step of how to attempt solving the cube. "It has an algorithm to it," Rawal explains. "The centre pieces don't move, so you need to move everything around those." And then she quickly solves it herself.
She is also a pretty good basketball player, a fact that not many of her team-mates seem to know. When Smriti Mandhana, Jemimah Rodrigues and Harmanpreet Kaur are asked who among the Indian players is a "former school-level gold medalist in basketball", they have to ponder a bit. Mandhana, Rawal's opening partner, gets it first. "I remember her speaking about how she used to like basketball," Mandhana says.
Rodrigues uses the elimination method to get the answer. "Only two people play basketball in our team [Harleen Deol and Rawal]," she laughs.
But captain Harmanpreet has "no idea". When told the answer, she smiles and says, "Pratika, she's still very new [in the team], so I don't know her very well."
Meanwhile, it's easy to "guess" Rodrigues as a subject of team-mate charades played by Sneh Rana, Richa Ghosh and Deepti Sharma. A twang of the guitar by Ghosh and the other two have the answer ready!
Rodrigues also talks about what it's like to be a "young senior" in the side. She's only 25 but has already played over 160 internationals in her seven-year career.
"Growing up, I was always the youngest in every team," Rodrigues says. "Even when I debuted [for India as a 17-year-old], I was the youngest until Shefali [Verma] and Richa came into the team and they started calling me Jemi di - very funny, I was like 'yeh kya ho gaya [how did this happen]?'. But once you're on the field, I don't think there is any such thing as a senior or a junior. My part may not be as big as the captain or the vice-captain, but in small bits and pieces - maybe talking to the players, especially when a debutant comes in, we take it as a responsibility to make them feel comfortable."