'It was a bit like switching fields' - how Bharti Fulmali reinvented herself

Until as recently as January 2023, Bharti Fulmali's morning routine involved scanning national and regional newspapers and circling potential sports-quota openings in the Railways, the Comptroller and Auditor General's office, the Income Tax department, postal services and other government bodies.

Her father, a schoolteacher and the sole earning member of the family, was nearing retirement, and Fulmali's meagre income from domestic cricket wouldn't cover even her basic expenses, let alone help the family. There was, to put it simply, no other option.

"I used to fill the forms blindly," she tells ESPNcricinfo in Vadodara ahead of the WPL Eliminator, where she'll be in action with the Gujarat Giants. "I didn't even know if there was a quota for women cricketers. But I kept applying."

Sometime in the middle of 2023, one of the hundreds of applications Fulmali had sent out was shortlisted, and the Income Tax office offered her a clerical job at a branch office in Bengaluru, where she has been working since, while also balancing her cricket.

"My family, especially my dad, never pressured me. That emotional support continues to be my biggest strength," Fulmali says. "It was a practical decision. I had anyway gone unsold at the [2023] WPL auction. I couldn't just sit back and hope."

That decision three years ago has given Fulmali and her family stability. It also helped ease her from the insecurities of not having a back-up just in case her cricket career didn't take off.

After two T20Is in early 2019, she found herself in the wilderness. Now, after seven years, her career has come full circle after being picked in India's T20I squad for the Australia tour later this month.

"I'm looking at it as a second debut," she says.

How Fulmali went from not even having a WPL contract to being a finisher forms the crux of her story.

Long before her India debut, from around 2015, Fulmali began training with Jitesh Sharma. Coming from Amravati in Maharashtra's Vidarbha region, the two regularly trained at the town's primary cricket facility and travelled together to Nagpur for their respective camps.

Since then, the two have shared a similar journey of rediscovery.

"When Jitesh was first picked in the IPL [in 2017], I remember him telling someone, 'I want to hit sixes like Bharti.' That really felt nice to hear. To see him go on to play for the country, and then make a comeback after being dropped, served as a big motivation for me.

"Now, I feel he's one of the best finishers in India, along with the likes of Rinku Singh. We often discuss what we can improve on whenever we meet."

It was somewhere in early 2024 that Fulmali began rewiring her game. She wanted to become a specialist finisher. But it wasn't until after last year's WPL that she actually began training differently.

"Every year, I try to learn something new," she says. "As a batter, I analyse my performances from the season. I watch videos, see where I am lacking, and then prepare for the next year. If certain shots aren't working, I try to understand why. Then I work on those areas in the off season or apply them in domestic cricket. This is a process I follow every year."

After WPL 2025, where Fulmali only briefly sparkled, a chat with Giants head coach Michael Klinger helped bring a fresh perspective. It was during this debrief session that he spoke to her of the need to be detached from failures.

The message was: "You can't ever be your team's leading run-scorer. But if you try, you can single-handedly win a handful of games with that ability."

"So I focused on that role," Fulmali says. "I tried to bat in similar situations even in domestic cricket, trying to develop that mentality of being able to make an impact even if I face just five balls. And for that, what I needed to do to get my strike rate up, I worked on that."

Soon after last year's WPL, Fulmali changed her routines.

Out went net sessions, in came centre-wicket simulations and range-hitting drills. This was despite her personal coach back in Amravati, Sandeep Gawande, initially having apprehensions at such a drastic change.

"It was a bit like switching fields," Fulmali says. "But you look at women's cricket. How many finishers are talked about today worldwide, like MS Dhoni? I wanted to play that tough role."

Fulmali's conviction was enough for Gawande to come on board.

"I prefer centre-wicket batting to hitting endlessly in the nets, because you get the feel of the boundary and the field," she explains. "Everything becomes clearer. I realised that just batting in nets wasn't helping much, so I changed my process.

"Batting on the centre wicket helps you understand which pockets you can target and how to hit there. My coach suggested using a tennis ball for long-hitting practice. It's lighter, so if I can hit it 50-60 metres with a tennis ball, the leather ball will definitely go further.

"In every session, I used to hit around 200-250 balls with this drill, and it helped me a lot."

Those range-hitting sessions played a massive role in the initial part of the WPL. In their first game, Fulmali hit an unbeaten 14 off seven balls against UP Warriorz. Then against Mumbai Indians, she struck an unbeaten 36 off 15 deliveries, and three days later against RCB, a 20-ball 39.

That confidence in her execution wasn't just visible in matches, but at training too, where she would routinely challenge Sophie Devine during their range-hitting sessions.

"Recently, I watched a reel where Hardik Pandya was range-hitting. And Gautam Gambhir sir was asking him where he was going to hit. The talk wasn't whether he would clear the ropes, but about which tier he would hit the ball into.

"That is the kind of competition I have with Sophie. Our competition is very healthy. In the nets, she'll say Bharti is hitting well, I want to hit bigger. We joke that if she hits two sixes, I'll hit three. When it reflects in the match, it feels really good and helps both of us."

After her early performances, Fulmali was soon submitting her passport for the visa paperwork for Australia. And later, came the news she was waiting for. She was officially recalled to the Indian side, a full seven years after her mini-stint.

"I couldn't sleep that night," she says. "I was initially overwhelmed, thinking about how my debut panned out. But now those nerves have settled. I'm excited, but before Australia, there's a WPL to win."