“Oh absolutely,” Meena, an octogenarian, stated when requested if she would have appreciated to play underneath lights within the newest league in India, the WPL. “But you know, it was so far back that one never thought of it. Now I’d say yes. But back then, nothing of this kind was ever in the offing.”

Bagging a hattrick, bowling rapidly, making the ball speak, Meena had achieved all of it. She had tilted the stability of Terance Shone Trophy matches in her staff’s favour so typically that the British staff gave her a nickname.

“They couldn’t play me, that’s why they started calling me Demon Meena,” she stated. Such was her repertoire as a quick bowler, an overhand quick bowler (of which there have been only a few again then), that on the age of 15, the opposition tried to cease her from taking part in.

“When the Roshanara staff began, I used to be 14 years previous. We performed the primary match and I received fairly a number of wickets on the time. So the following match they stated, ‘No no, we won’t enable anyone underneath 16 to play’. They simply wished to get away with that. We insisted.

Our coach and umpire was Devraj Puri. We used to have males umpiring the matches. They had somebody from the embassy and we had Devraj Puri. So he stated, ‘we will not listen to that and we will play you’. After that, I performed all through.”

For Meena, her affinity in direction of the game got here from her household. Not to overlook that she was a National Games discus throw champion. “My uncles, my brothers, everyone played cricket. I started playing it because I had no sisters. I had only three brothers. It was picking up whatever they were playing. It was a cricketing family and after that, I married a cricketer too.”

It was no coincidence that Meena would meet her associate, Col. Anant Kanwar “Nandi” Khanna at a Ranji Trophy match. “My sons play cricket. It’s actually in our blood.”

But ladies’s cricket within the 50s didn’t have the assist system it has now.

“In my time, there was no coaching. The matches that we played with the British High Commission, it was on the basis of sheer talent. There was no money. No money whatsoever.”

Matchday tea and lunch, and the identical throughout observe video games was all Meena and her teammates received for taking part in the game. Roshanara would make an exception for his or her star participant. “Being an army wife, we were posted out of Delhi sometimes. Roshanara used to pay my fare and call me from wherever I was. To come and play. That’s about it.”

The Rs 30 lakh that Wong received after being picked for Mumbai Indians to play for 4 weeks is one thing the likes of Meena couldn’t even dream of.

Some of the previous media clippings and pictures of Meena taking part in cricket present her donning a churidar pajama. “It was like wearing trousers which are tight. Didn’t bother me as it didn’t come in the way (while bowling). A salwaar, yes. Later on, I started wearing trousers when I went to the nationals. But otherwise, chudidar didn’t bother me.”

1973 noticed the formation of the Women’s Cricket Association of India, a yr after the final version of the Terence Shone Trophy. It was additionally the yr of cricket’s first World Cup— a ladies’s World Cup. Three years earlier than the Indian ladies’s cricket staff made its debut. For Meena, nonetheless, time as a participant was coming to an finish.

“I was about 34 when I played my last match with them (Roshanara). By then, I had lost my speed. For a bowler, especially somebody who’s bowling in-swing, losing the speed… it’s not the same thing,” she says.

50 years later, with the first-ever Women’s Premier League last being performed on Sunday, there’s pleasure in her voice as Meena speaks about Wong and the opposite WPL solid members. “It’s great now. About time the women receive this kind of thing coming their way. About time they got that recognition. They’re playing very well.”