This Centre In Chennai Is Offering The Best Training Facilities To Our Women Cricketers And That Is Great News!

The Indian women's cricket team has proved its mettle on the world stage. However, when it comes to grassroots development for the girls in India, it's still work in progress.

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In a bid to develop women's cricket, the CSS Whatmore Centre for Cricket at the Sri Ramachandra Medical College in Chennai, is set to propose a plan to the BCCI to streamline coaching at grassroots level.

The facility, with former Australian cricketer and renowned coach Dav Whatmore as the director, will soon be in talks with the BCCI on hosting the Indian women's cricket team as well as other women's state teams for their pre-season, pre-tournament and summer training camps in its centre here.

If the proposal materialises, not only will the likes of Mithali Raj, Smriti Mandhana, Harmanpreet Kaur and all the top women cricketers will have access to some of the world's top training facilities but even a talented girl trying to find her feet will also benefit.

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M Sanjay, head of cricket operations at the CSS centre, said that they have discussed this venture with a few former top women cricketers such as Shantha Rangaswamy and Shubhangi Kulkarni. "We will make a presentation to BCCI and Diana Edulji (who is also a member of the Committee of Administrators CoA) soon. This is the right time to support women's cricket. Our intention is to ensure that women get all the necessary facilities that the men get," Sanjay told TOI on Monday.

It's the same centre where top spinners like Saeed Ajmal, Mohammad Hafeez, Sachitra Senanayake, Sunil Narine had come to rectify their actions. Over the past two years, the centre has also hosted various international and domestic teams such as Afghanistan, Kerala, Tripura for their pre-season camps.

"We have a long-term athlete development programme and we want to bring a system into women's cricket. It will help them develop into a better unit. Shantha, Shubhangi, Hemamalini -all have welcomed our move. We are hoping for the best," Sanjay added.

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Star India women's allrounder Jhulan Goswami too welcomed this initiative. "Indian women cricketers do train at the NCA, which has top-class facilities ahead of the season. Although I cannot comment on the Indian team training in Chennai, but if something like this comes up for girls at the grassroot level (age category), then it will be a terrific move. Training in a different place and playing matches will be great for young girls," Goswami told TOI.

In addition to this, Sanjay mentioned that they have charted out plans to conduct women's inter-state pre-season tournament, which is likely to take place in September. It will be a limited overs event, in the likes of Buchi Babu invitational meet, that is hosted by the Tamil Nadu Cricket Association every year. "We are in talks with a few state associations at the moment, mostly from south. We need to get prior approval.

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We have plans to conduct, possibly a 30-over or 50-over tournament by September as some of the women teams don't have proper pre-season practice matches. We are also looking at an all-India invitation level tournament later next February and March with different state teams and combined teams taking part.

"The idea is to unearth talent and nurture them at various training programmes," said Sanjay, a former TN coach.

The development programme kick starts in the last week of August with CSS conducting a talent hunt for girls from city colleges in their centre. "We are planning to felicitate Diana, Shantha and a few other former women's cricketers late August. On the same day, we are conducting a talent hunt, which will have participants from various colleges such as WCC, Ethiraj and a few others.

"We will pick a few bright talents and they will undergo a two-week camp under coach Whatmore here. This will carry on regularly and we want to ensure more opportunities are given to women cricketers at the grassroots level," said Sanjay, who worked with the Tamil Nadu women's team in 2010.