'You are made for this' - From U-19s to WPL and beyond, Niki Prasad visualising success

Niki Prasad has had quite a month. A couple of weeks after captaining India Under-19s to the T20 World Cup title in Kuala Lumpur, she played a match-winning hand for Delhi Capitals against Mumbai Indians on her WPL debut. India and MI captain Harmanpreet Kaur, one of Prasad's idols, walked up to her and congratulated her.

Batting in tricky situations, sharing the dressing room with legends like Meg Lanning, doing press interactions... You'd think all this would be overwhelming for a 19-year-old, but Prasad has been preparing for such moments for a long time. She believes she's "made for this".

"I visualised playing the WPL match," Prasad tells ESPNcricinfo. "I visualised going out there and doing my best and getting those runs for the team. I think when you really want something, and when you get that opportunity, you really want to make full use of it. I really wanted to play WPL and win the match for the team, so when I had that opportunity, all I wanted to do was stay calm, stay in the moment and focus on one ball at a time, take the take the game deep and win it.

"I had already seen this coming. So now since it's all here I am quite normal about it. I think my body and my mind already tells me, 'You are made for this'."

Growing up in Bengaluru, Prasad started playing tennis-ball cricket at playgrounds with her cousin when she was six. With a "supportive" family around her, she soon transitioned to the leather ball, joining an academy close to her house before moving to Just Cricket Academy further afield. She had to travel 24 kms from her house to get there for three years, but moved closer to the academy as her career took off. Her mother played a big part in her cricketing journey, accompanying her to the academy "every single day".

She barely remembers seeing women play cricket at the academy but when she saw about 70-80 of them at the Karnataka U-16 trials, she was "really excited".

Prasad grew up idolising Rahul Dravid. Once she discovered women's cricket thanks to YouTube and the growing media coverage, she started closely following Mithali Raj. But has she modelled her game on any of her idols? "No, I want to play like Niki Prasad," she says.

Much like Dravid, Prasad wants to be remembered for her calmness on the field. She showed some of the trait when she came in with Capitals needing 89 off 65 balls, their top four batters gone, during her first WPL game. She held her nerve till the last over, scoring 35 off 32 before being dismissed just before her team got home.

"I get this calmness from my mom," she says, smiling. "Over the years, handling a lot of other different teams, you need to stay calm and very patient, especially under pressure situations as well.

"The kind calmness Dravid sir used to bring into the side, that is one thing which I've always looked up to, and from there I think I started cultivating that thing of staying calm. I really want to continue that for a long time."

When she was not picked for the inaugural Women's U-19 World Cup in 2023, she took it as a "motivation" and made several changes to her lifestyle. "I made sure whatever I was lacking or not good at, I improved more on that. I know nothing is going to come easy. If you want to play for India, you've got to be the best. That's when I changed my entire routine, mindset, food habits, my skills. I have been training really hard. There's still a long way to go, but each day is a learning.

"For batting, I started doing a lot of power hitting, a lot of power training and such intense trainings. I focused a lot on my fitness because I needed to have good strength and good endurance. And I worked on my fitness and changed my food habits and mindset, skillset… everything."

As a captain on the field, irrespective of whether she's leading Karnataka U-19s or India U-19s, her mantra is to always set high standards. "The first person anyone is going to look up to in the team is going to be the captain," she says. "So the standard of the captain needs be high. That's my mantra whenever I'm leading, to make sure I'm setting the standards first for my team. Then obviously the players will also get motivated that our captain is doing that and we should also give our 100%."

Her U-19 women's team was a tight-knit unit; Prasad believes that every single player worked towards the goal of winning the title.

"To lead a team whose goal was one… it [felt] nice to be leading such a side. That only happens when you are playing together with each other for a very long time. Before entering the World Cup we had already been playing for over nine months and that gives you an advantage. You have that clarity and you are preparing well for those goals.

"When we went into the World Cup, we knew what we had to do every game and that's why the dominance [India were undefeated through the tournament] was seen."

Prasad not only sets high standards for herself on the field but also in academics. She was keen on pursuing higher studies despite her busy cricket schedule and enrolled herself in a full-time BBA in sports management from PES University in Bengaluru. "I start studying 20 days before the exam and that's how I catch up on everything," she says.

After going unsold in the first round of the auction ahead of WPL 2025, Prasad was picked up by Capitals for INR 10 lakh during the accelerated round. An unexpected congratulatory message followed from senior India batter and Captials team-mate Jemimah Rodrigues, who's now become her "go-to person". But ahead of the WPL, having spent quite a bit of time with her U-19 team-mates, she assumed she was going to feel a bit out of place around the senior players. She says was proven wrong instantly. To begin, she received a grand welcome for her U-19 title feat from her Capitals team-mates.

"When I was playing U-19, we were all so tight that I thought once I come out of that zone I'm going to feel a little left out," she says. "But at DC, I don't think there's a single day where I felt left out or felt alone. Even the big players like Shafali [Verma] di and Jemi di, they all talking to you. And legends like Meg Lanning and Marizanne Kapp are all really fun and they really interact with you."

Prasad has been picking up captaincy tips by observing Lanning on the field and hopes to pick her brains at some point during this WPL stint. She also hopes to learn how to play the square cut as well as Lanning does.

"I have spoken a bit about batting but haven't had one about captaincy. But I keep seeing her on the field, what she's doing with the field set and how she handles the bowlers. I keep noticing it even when I'm sitting out, as well when I'm inside the field."

Prasad's offside game was on display in the match against Mumbai Indians, and she showed she can access other parts of the ground too against UP Warriorz. She's learned quite a bit about how to approach a T20 game from her U-19 India batting coach Apoorva Desai. But she's keen on improving her power game.

"I think that [power hitting] is more needed in T20 and you need a lot of power to get those boundaries or hit over the boundary for a six. So that's one thing which I'm going to be focusing on, just getting that power."

Of course, turning out for the senior Indian team is the biggest dream. And, as she always does, Prasad has visualised how it would all pan out once she puts on the national colours.

"I want to be the match-winner for India and that's what I visualised - winning matches for India and winning trophies, not just U-19 or WPL but also the senior India World Cup and other ICC events. I'm visualising being the match-winner for all of it."