Women scorers pair’ for Wankhede Test

PTI, Dec 2, 2021, 6:18 PM IST

Mumbai: In what will be a rare sight, two women scorers will be assisting the reporters in the Press Box during the second Test between India and New Zealand.

The final Test begins on Friday. The two female scorers who will be doing the scoring duties at Wankhede are Kshama Sane and Sushma Sawant.

“Perhaps for the first time it is happening that two women scorers are there for a Test match, a senior Mumbai Cricket Association scorer told PTI.

Kshama, 45, hails from suburban Nahur and passed the BCCI Women’s special batch scoring exam in 2010 and since then she is scoring in IPL and Ranji Trophy games.

She has scored for plenty senior and junior games for the last eleven years and is one of the leading scorers in the Mumbai Cricket Association (MCA).

Kshama has played for the U-15 level for Mumbai in the 1990s and played for two tournaments and then left cricket. In 1996, there was an umpire’s course and she passed that but did not take it up professionally.

In 2006, she passed the MCA scorer exam. She had earlier worked in three companies but left her job in 2018 to pursue a full-fledged career scoring.

On my personal front, I’m the only child of my parents. My mother was the one who was keen on getting me into cricket from a young age of 11 years.

“I used to go for practice at Mrs Surekha Bhandare’s coaching club from age 11 to 15. My mother worked for the Maharashtra government and father is a musician, who plays drums, Kshama told PTI over phone.

50-year-old Sushma, who resides in suburban Chembur, passed the BCCI women’s special scoring course in 2010 and began working with the Women’s World Cup in 2013. Since then she hasn’t looked back and has scored for a plethora of IPL, BCCI, domestic, junior and senior matches.

Sushma’s husband is a former local cricketer and she took to scoring as a hobby.

She worked as an accountant in the Hindustan Apparel Industry and after she left the job, she took a one year gap before working as a full time scorer.

“I enjoy cricket and I am excited for it and for the first time I am doing a Test match. Women have a lot of scope in scoring, an elated Sushma told PTI.

In the past the pair of Hemali Desai and Sejal Dave from Saurashtra, have been the other women’s pair to have scored for a Test match.