At Navi Mumbai, debutant Shubha Satheesh smashed a fifty off 49 balls, the second-fastest by an Indian woman in Test cricket.

Shubha Satheesh strode out to bat when India lost Smriti Mandhana early in the sixth over of the lone Test match. She lost Shafali Verma in the ninth over, and was joined by fellow debutant Jemimah Rodrigues.

All that would have deterred most debutants from counterattacking. Not Satheesh. Her first Test runs came off a gorgeous cover drive off the second ball she faced. There was a subsequent edge, but two balls later, she lofted Lauren Bell over the slip cordon for four.

There was no reason for Shubha to slow down after that, especially not in a four-day Test match where slow batting makes enforcing a result improbable. When the England pacers pitched up, she drove. When they bowled short – which they did a bit too often on a flat pitch – she cut or pulled.

The fifty took forty-nine balls. In matches where ball-by-ball data is available, only Sangita Dabir (40 balls) had got there quicker among Indians. From other countries, only Vanessa Bowen (40 balls) and Nat Sciver-Brunt (48) have beaten Shubha to it. She eventually fell for 69 – “upset” but “happy” – from 76 balls. The innings was studded with 13 hits to the fence.

Shubha had been in the news earlier this month as well. In fact, the The call-up to the Test squad happened after she made 99 and 49 in the intra-squad ‘Test’ that served as a quasi-trial.

England’s tour had begun with the T20Is, for which Shubha had not been picked. However, during the course of the series, the Royal Challengers Bangalore acquired her for INR 10 lakh at the WPL 2024 auction.

The eventful month continued when, on the morning of December 14, the Indian team management informed Shubha that she would play Test cricket later in the day and bat at three.

Shubha's fifty is the second fastest among Indians, trailing only Sangita Dabir's fifty achieved in 40 balls 👏#SatheeshShubha #INDvsENG #Cricket #Tests pic.twitter.com/6AXktI9ztb

— Wisden India (@WisdenIndia) December 14, 2023

This was an unusual debut. So rare are women’s Test matches that it is nearly unheard-of for a cricketer to play in the format before playing limited-overs cricket for their country. But while one of its kind, the debut was inevitable: it was the culmination of a journey that had begun more than a decade ago.

Spotted very early, Shubha had gone through the usual grind of age-group cricket, yet cut through the ranks at rapid pace. She broke into the Karnataka Under-16s, then the Under-19s, at only twelve.

She soon found a place at the top of the order and this point, she also bowled reasonable medium pace. She played hockey and “every team sport” her school offered as well.

By thirteen, she had broken through to the senior state side. By fifteen, she was opening the batting for them. This was no mean feat, for the Karnataka side boasted of international cricketers like Karu Jain, Veda Krishnamurthy, and Vanitha VR.

An international call-up was unlikely to happen soon, but a run of 36, 21*, 60, 76*, 85, 68, 71, 8, 64, 55* in 50-over cricket in 2021 helped her grab the spotlight. That culminated in a Test call-up two years later.

Things can only get better from here.

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