Prema Rawat-Smriti Mandhana and Cristiano Ronaldo-Nuno Mendes crossover at India Women’s training at Manchester
Trisha Ghosal, Manchester
The Women’s T20I World Cup is on, India have a crucial Group A clash against Bangladesh later in the day, and Boria, Snehasis and this writer have spent the better part of the week doing what tournament reporting demands, living at grounds, chasing copy, attending press conferences, watching training and trying to remember what life outside the World Cup bubble looks like.
Somewhere in the middle of all that, there has also been the FIFA World Cup. Or at least the attempt to keep up with it.
The intention has been there. The execution, not always. Covering one World Cup while trying to follow another is a risky business. You begin the day thinking you will catch the football later in the evening, and before you know it, you are filing copy, watching another optional training drill, speaking to support staff and wondering how on earth Cristiano Ronaldo has apparently already done something worth discussing again.
Which is why it was only fair of the Indian women’s team to ensure that nobody at Old Trafford Cricket Ground forgot football entirely. Special credit for that must go to Prema Rawat.
On matchday minus one in Manchester, India Women produced a moment that would not have looked entirely out of place in the FIFA World Cup.
It instantly took this writer back to Portugal’s free-kick routine against Uzbekistan the other evening. Cristiano Ronaldo stood over the ball. He looked every bit the man about to take the kick himself. The crowd was fixed on him, the opposition were fixed on him, and for a few seconds the entire stadium seemed to be operating on the assumption that the script had already been written. Then, in came Nuno Mendes, taking the kick instead, catching almost everybody by surprise and helping Portugal go 2-0 up. It was one of those classic football moments where the drama lay not just in the execution, but in the deception.
At India Women’s training in Manchester, the same element of surprise arrived. The only difference was that it came in a foot-volley warm-up and involved one Indian batter suddenly having to save herself from her own teammate.
For those who follow the women’s team regularly, foot volley is hardly a novelty. It is part of the warm-up routine before the serious cricket work begins. The players split into teams, the mood immediately becomes competitive, and what is technically a loosener ends up being treated with all the intensity of a final.
Wednesday was no different.
One side had Deepti Sharma, Radha Yadav, Jemimah Rodrigues, Richa Ghosh, Yastika Bhatia, Nandni Sharma and Kranti Goud. The other featured Smriti Mandhana, Prema Rawat, Shafali Verma, Renuka Singh Thakur, Arundhati Reddy, N Sree Charani and Bharti Fulmali.
And then came India’s own Portugal-Uzbekistan tribute act.
Prema Rawat shaped to send the ball into the opposition court. It looked straightforward enough. Her teammates watched. The players on the other side watched. This writer watched. The expectation was simple: ball goes across court, rally continues, everybody carries on.
Except the ball had clearly decided it wanted a bigger role in the story.
Off Prema’s boot, it swirled and bent spectacularly. Not towards the opposition court, where it had every business going, but towards Smriti Mandhana. More specifically, towards Mandhana’s head.
For a split second, Old Trafford Cricket Ground stopped being a cricket venue and became the site of a footballing ambush.
Mandhana, to her credit, responded with the kind of agility that should settle any debate about her reflexes outside the batting crease. She ducked sharply, neatly and just in time, avoiding what would have been a rather unfortunate meeting between teammate and football. There was first a collective sigh of relief. Then came the laughter.
And there was plenty of it.
Players laughed, support staff laughed, and Prema herself seemed to appreciate the scale of the chaos she had just created. In one accidental piece of foot-volley improvisation, India Women had managed to produce a training-ground moment with all the ingredients of a FIFA World Cup set-piece — deception, curve, surprise and an audience briefly wondering whether they had just watched the right sport.
To be fair to Prema, there was undeniable quality in the strike. The intended target may not have approved, but the shape on the ball had pedigree. If she does not make the XI against Bangladesh later in the day, the walk from Old Trafford Cricket Ground to Old Trafford football stadium is not especially long, and this writer is willing to believe she could put in a respectable audition. manchester United legend David Beckham, had he seen that swerve, may even have offered a nod of approval.
That was the beauty of the whole episode. It came in the middle of an otherwise intense session. Once the laughter subsided, India went straight back to work. The foot volley gave way to the cricket. The batting drills followed, range-hitting closed the session, and the focus returned to Bangladesh and a game India know they have to get right.
But for a few minutes before all that seriousness took over, the team offered a reminder of why training days are often where the best stories hide. Not because of selection clues or technical tweaks, but because of the accidental little moments that reveal personality, looseness and life in a World Cup camp.
This was one of those moments.
The Women’s T20 World Cup may be the tournament India are here to play, but thanks to Prema Rawat and Smriti Mandhana, Manchester also got a tiny taste of the FIFA World Cup. Portugal had Cristiano Ronaldo and Nuno Mendes pulling off a surprise routine against Uzbekistan. India had Prema producing the swerve and Mandhana doing the emergency evasive work.
Different sport, different stakes, same principle: when everybody thinks they know where the ball is going, sport has a habit of doing something far more entertaining.
And on Wednesday in Manchester, that made for a rather brilliant little crossover story.
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