The making of Yastika Bhatia

Former India captain Purnima Rau vividly remembers her first interaction with Yastika Bhatia like it was yesterday. It was in the lead-up to the 2012-13 domestic season. Yastika was still in her early days with the Baroda setup where Rau had now taken up the coaching assignment. She wanted a closer look at the overall talent pool in Baroda and handpicked Bhatia to bat in the senior team's nets. "I saw the futility of the exercise - the separate nets for senior girls, junior nets and newcomers' nets - and just thought this might motivate the rest of the youngsters," Rau recalls.

At the end of that session, which the U-19 opener spent merrily and gracefully cover-driving a senior offspinner, Rau handed the 12-year-old her own faded India cap and said, "You'll play for India one day - just keep that in mind and keep working towards that. It may be a long journey but I see you there."

Unknowingly, Rau's two lines of encouragement and a heartfelt gesture left a lasting influence on the girl who rose through the ranks steadily thereafter. Ask anyone in this Bhatia household and they cite that evening and the relationship that it created with Rau as sowing the seeds of an India dream. "She's a grateful kid," Rau recollects fondly, looking back at the book she received as a gift from Yastika after her state debut.

"What doesn't surprise me is the air of confidence with which she walks in to bat. It's still the same as what I first saw when Yasti was, what, 11-12 maybe," Rau says, shedding light on how and why the 21-year-old is making waves at the 2022 World Cup in New Zealand.

Almost a decade on from that seminal moment, Yastika has emerged as one of the finds for India at the World Cup. Just six months into her international career, she has become the explosive opener for India that they didn't know they had, having not started the tournament as one. She's India's anchor at one-drop when they decide to reinstate Shafali Verma at the top. She's the certified 'nerd' who carried her books to Australia for university exams that clashed, but didn't think twice about skipping one even if it meant having to repeat the semester.

This adaptability is not a new trait. Yastika was naturally a right-hander, but was groomed from the age of eight to bat left-handed because it provided any team she played for an undeniable edge. She was a tall medium-pace allrounder in the making, who in a heartbeat swapped the new ball for wicketkeeping gloves and pads because that's what the team lacked.

"She was always a very dedicated kid, who focused on just her cricket and nothing else at training even when she was barely 10," says Rajkuvardevi Gaekwad, chairman of Baroda and West Zone selection panel, former India manager and another product of the Youth Services Centre Club (YSCC) where Yastika trains professionally. "We at Baroda had been observing her very minutely the last few years - we knew she had the potential and skill to go all the way. I'd called it way back in 2016."

Back then, barely days after sitting for her 12th board exams, which she went on to clear with 88.8 percent, Yastika led West Zone to the U19 championship title in the very first season of being handed the leadership responsibilities. That's the validation she needed to make the tough call and pull the plug on what could have been an equally promising career in medicine, like her doctor sibling, Josita.

At 17, Yastika made the first mark as a batter in domestic cricket with her maiden hundred in Aurangabad, in the U-19 competition. In the 2018-19 season, she impressed with 145 off 135 deliveries against Haryana, helping Baroda U-23 post their first-ever 300-plus total. Leading the T20 side later, in the absence of regular captain Radha Yadav, she truly grabbed the attention of the national selectors with her brutal 63-ball 125 not out against Manipur.

But even as Jemimah Rodrigues was fast-tracked to top-flight cricket in 2018 after an exceptional domestic season, Yastika, a close second year after year to her fellow West Zone opening partner and good friend, kept knocking on the India door with consistent performances for the A side, touring the subcontinent and quietly piling up runs to strengthen her case. She was a part of the victorious India A side that won the six-match limited-overs series in Bangladesh as well as the inaugural Emerging Asia Cup in 2019 in Sri Lanka, consistently providing the starts needed on the slow and low tracks. When Harleen Deol was laid low with an injury ahead of a star-studded, Veda Krishnamurthy-led A team's Australia tour later that year, Yastika was the unanimous first-choice replacement. She missed the one-dayers due to the last-minute call-up and the subsequent visa delays, and did not have the best of time in the T20s, thereby slipping under the selectors' radar when the team for the 2020 World Cup was named. The rejection was further compounded with the frustration of a nation-wide lockdown at a time when a national call-up felt imminent after her exploits for India B in the quadrangular series in Patna, involving World Cup-bound Thailand and Bangladesh.

Thankfully, being forced home was not the end of the world. Sport had been a part of family life from a young age, with Harish Bhatia encouraging his daughters to play cricket after their badminton stint was cut short and a black belt in karate had already been achieved. In the lockdown, the father and daughter turned the disappointment into an opportunity and, with fellow residents' help, converted a part of their society's parking facility into nets. Santosh Chaugule, the long-time personal coach since Yastika's first days at the YSCC, would come down daily to oversee two-hour training sessions. Knocking around a hard leather ball posed a challenge and fetched complaints, but Yastika promptly opted for tennis ball throwdowns rather than giving the practice a miss any day. It's that improvised three months of training with a bouncier ball and concrete pitch that Harish partially credits for her stellar across-formats debut in Australia last year.

A large part of the credit is also due to Kiran More, who she started additional training under on the advice of WV Raman, who was India's coach when Yastika received her maiden national call-up. She warmed the bench across the eight-match white-ball series against South Africa in Lucknow last March, but the hard yards Yastika put in the nets day after day despite non-selection - soaking in whatever she could during her time in the national set-up - did not escape the attention of Raman and Narendra Hirwani, the team's spin coach. As a tall girl, they noticed that Yastika needed to work extra on her movements behind the stumps, and asked her over to the NCA in the off-season - before Raman decided to redirect her to former India stumper, More, for more focused guidance.

Dropped from the squad for the England tour without a chance to showcase her abilities, Yastika set out once again to transform herself under the tutelage of yet another YSCC alumni. More remembers the call from Raman, and the task he was entrusted with - to refine her into a multi-dimensional asset that India can fall back upon, at a time when the team still hadn't zeroed in on a 'keeper who could prove their utility in front of the stumps as well.

"She was always a terrific talent - I'd seen her game on TV and otherwise also in a few matches long before she started practising under me. We worked quite a lot on her keeping, perfecting the basics and the technique, identifying what were her strong areas. And also how to get more creative as a wicketkeeper rather than just standing behind," More says.

"At the moment she's playing as a pure batter in the Indian team with Richa [Ghosh] taking the gloves, but my goal is to make her a complete package - a solid wicketkeeper-batter that you can utilise as a two-dimensional player. She has the capacity and the talent to do that... And, I can tell you she's ready. It's healthy for the Indian team also, having this healthy competition but she's more than ready as a back-up option always when needed."

More also recalls the work put in to help her adopt a more aggressive approach as a batter - something India sought from their 'keeper. Treated no differently among fellow trainees at the Reliance Cricket Ground, the home of Baroda men's Ranji team, Yastika honed her power-hitting skills against upwards of 130 kph deliveries from bowlers well above her pay-grade, India all-rounder Hardik Pandya among them.

"She's young, you know, just got into the Indian team. So, [the work was] on things like which areas to score runs in, who to score against, and how to score runs on a good day and on a bad day. On how to score on different international pitches and under different conditions, and how to prolong the innings or the starts she gets," says More.

At the centre wicket, with all the fielders stationed at the boundary ropes, More would set and reset targets for her every 50 deliveries and then keep tabs on how often she cleared the fences, or even the 30-yard circle. What used to be two sixes per session at the start of this training regimen, steadily swelled up to 10, even 12, as her confidence grew with each passing day. "We did a lot of open nets. We worked on [improving] her bat-speed and balance while hitting the ball. Balance is the key, the stability of the body when you hit."

It was a conscious decision on More's part to make her face the senior men's bowling at his academy. "When Hardik and Krunal were here, she used to bat against them every chance she got, and even against my academy boys who play for Baroda. I throw her a lot of challenges every now and then and she enjoys that. She'd get knocked down, no doubt, but she replies strongly. She mostly plays with the boys now and sometimes she'll come back and say: 'Now when I go there [women's circuit], it's a different ball-game altogether. Feels like the ball comes pretty slow there and I find it pretty easy to bat then.'

"She's a God-gifted player, a natural talent. I don't like to change any player - you just have to give her the finer areas where she can improve in and get better. That's what I've been doing with her. She's a very organised player in herself."

Additionally, she'd practise for "hours together" at the YSCC under Chaugule on alternate days when not training with More. Irrespective of which part of the city she spent her morning in, Yastika would show up for Baroda nets every evening without fail. Harish had virtually manifested the India call-up for his daughter with a pep talk every time she felt left out - and Yastika wasn't gonna let the Lucknow setback deter her.

Back in the national reckoning with a 35-member NCA camp ahead of the multi-format tour of Australia, Yastika made it impossible for the new management - coach Ramesh Powar and the selection panel - to ignore her any longer when she tonked sixes for fun and racked up a significant bill against the country's best bowlers in the two intra-squad practice games. Over in Australia, a run-a-ball 41 in the lone warm-up game helped quietly climb the pecking order away from spotlight and at the expense of other experienced names, Rodrigues among them.

Yastika's versatility was amply on display across the three ODIs of her debut series where she went from steadying the ship alongside Mithali Raj with a 51-ball 35 in Game 1 to taking point in India's highest ODI chase in Game 3, with her maiden international fifty - a fluent 69-ball 64 that helped snap Australia's world-record winning streak of 26 matches. Back home, she devoured the Chhattisgarh bowling attack for breakfast on her 21st birthday, hitting a magnificent 107 off 91 deliveries at one-down in the Senior One-Day Trophy, before top-scoring with a tally of 199 - two fifties included - for champions India A in the Senior Women's One Day Challengers Trophy 2021-22, in Mulapadu.

Her inclusion in the World Cup starting XI seemed a no-brainer on the evidence of her confident runs in India's 4-1 drubbing at the hands of hosts New Zealand in the lead-up. Except, she was inexplicably left out. Once again.

A challenge disguised as an opportunity presented itself soon after the first game with Verma's continued failure at the top, and Yastika revelled in it with a 21-ball cameo of 31 that fellow opener Smriti Mandhana made a point to acknowledge in India's big win over West Indies. Even though not earmarked as a back-up opener in the side, the 21-year-old seamlessly slipped into her natural role and showcased her range as well as maturity going from a middle-order accumulator to an aggressor up top and back, all in the space of five games. Albeit in a losing cause, a gritty 59 in a record partnership against Australia's revered bowling attack has all but assured her of the spot in XI for whatever is left of India's World Cup campaign, and maybe even beyond.

'Hardwork puts you where good luck can find you!' reads her current Twitter bio. Through her perseverance and single-minded focus, Yastika has rammed her point home. Now, perhaps, is the time to change it. Because, Yastika Bhatia is whatever the team needs her to be.