From Kolkata’s slums to elite cricket: The story of India’s Saika Ishaque

From Kolkata’s slums to elite cricket: The story of India’s Saika Ishaque Park Circus, a bustling neighbourhood in the heart of India’s historic eastern metropolis Kolkata, is known as a Muslim ghetto by its inhabitants and the city’s Hindu middle-class populace. Some of the poorest slums of the city are found here at the cross-section of Kolkata’s central and southern districts in a mix of posh enclaves, malls and restaurants.

The story of India’s Saika Ishaque

• In a conservative and marginalised environment, especially for women, it is nothing short of remarkable that one of the neighbourhood’s own, Saika Ishaque, picked up cricket at a young age.
• What’s more, the “ziddi” (headstrong) player from Park Circus went on to become one of Indian cricket’s breakout stars and rags-to-riches success stories of the year.
• In a fairytale-like year, Saika signed a contract with the Mumbai Indians franchise in the inaugural Women’s Premier League (WPL), completed a title-winning campaign with them and made an impressive debut for India in the recent T20 series against England.
• The 28-year-old left-arm spinner now finds herself knocking on the doors of the Test team as India look to build a dominant squad.

Saika has had a rough and tough childhood
Goswami knows Saika better than most, being her former teammate in the Bengal side and current bowling coach at Mumbai Indians.
“Her family’s financial condition has always been utterly abject. She lost her father at a very young age, and coming from such a place where having two square meals a day or studying or playing is a tall ask, it’s quite incredible to see a girl having come this far and play cricket for India.”
Goswami has watched Saika’s journey unfold from up close.
The 41-year-old remembers a pre-teen Saika lugging a bat almost twice her size for practice sessions at Vivekananda Park in southern Kolkata.

WPL 2023: The Saika Ishaque story - From nearly quitting cricket to becoming Mumbai Indians’ spinner of choice

• Saika Ishaque’s evolution from an underperforming underconfident domestic player to Mumbai Indians’ wrecker-in-chief in the ongoing WPL 2023 has contributions from Mithu Mukherjee, Shivsagar Singh and Jhulan Goswami.
• umbai Indians spinner Saika Ishaque currently holds the purple cap. | Photo Credit: Sportzpics for WPL
• Saika Ishaque could not have asked for a better start to her Women’s Premier League career. Representing Mumbai Indians in the country’s premier women’s franchise tournament, she took a wicket in every over she bowled in MI’s campaign opener against Gujarat Giants. She followed it up with two wickets against Royal Challengers Bangalore.

umbai Indians spinner Saika Ishaque currently holds the purple cap

Saika Ishaque could not have asked for a better start to her Women’s Premier League career. Representing Mumbai Indians in the country’s premier women’s franchise tournament, she took a wicket in every over she bowled in MI’s campaign opener against Gujarat Giants. She followed it up with two wickets against Royal Challengers Bangalore.

Saika has come a long way, given she contemplated walking away from the game a few years ago. After enjoying success early on with the Bengal women’s U-19 team, the spinner, who hails from Park Circus in Kolkata, found it difficult to keep up the momentum.

• She was one of the most promising left-arm spinners for Bengal and was also the captain of the U-19 team. She grew up in a difficult environment in the slums of Park Circus and having lost her father at an early age, it was incredibly challenging for her to pursue the sport,” Mukherjee tells Sportstar.
• While her mother struggled to make ends meet, Saika - the youngest of the two sisters - chased her dreams of becoming a cricketer. “She was a bubbly young talent, who overcame all odds to follow her passion. It was not easy given the financial conditions at home, but we ensured that she got all the support,” Mukherjee says.
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• That support extended beyond just working on her game as Mukherjee ensured she got kits and equipment too.
• In hindsight, Mukherjee ranks Singh’s intervention in Saika’s trajectory as a career-changing moment.
• “I knew Shibu (Singh) was a good spin-bowling coach, so I asked her to train under him for a while and see how it goes. She listened to me and I am glad she did…”
• Alongside her technique, an important facet to improve was her self confidence. Towards that end, Singh got Saika to train with the men’s team of East Bengal cricket team.

hat increased her level of confidence and the technical side of things fell in place. Once that was addressed, my job was to make her understand how to bowl specifically in ODIs and T20Is. Earlier, she would just come up with good-length deliveries outside the off-stump, but in women’s cricket, that’s actually very easy for the batters to play. I changed that approach. I asked her to bowl full-length and she picked it up quickly,” Singh says.
The fruits of their labour are for all to see in the WPL. Saika removed Annabel Sutherland, Georgia Wareham, Mansi Joshi, and Monica Patel, playing a crucial role in Mumbai’s demolition of Gujarat in the opening fixture. In the match against RCB, she removed veteran international Sophie Devine and Disha Kasat.
Watching the proceedings on television, both Mukherjee and Singh were elated to see their ward come so far. But they weren’t the only helping hands Saika had in her career - the other being former India captain and her mentor at Mumbai Indians