U19 Cricket World Champion Trisha: A Father’s Gift That Sparked a Dream

Feb 2, 2025

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Gongadi Trisha’s journey to U19 cricket glory began when her father gifted her a plastic bat at age 2. From early training to World Cup success, read her inspiring story.

U19 Cricket World Champion Trisha: A Father’s Gift That Sparked a Dream

Trisha Gongadi emerged as India’s brightest cricketing star at the U19 World Cup, picking up three wickets in the final and leading India to the ultimate junior triumph.

In 10 innings prior to the final, the opening batter had piled a hundred, two half-centuries and two 40s, at an average of 64.8. The youngster had started cricket at age 2, as her sports-mad father planned a perfect junior career, culminating in the India win by 9 wickets.

On Sunday, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, every time South Africa were looking to change gears she came up with a breakthrough. With her brisk leg-spin, she had earlier picked up seven wickets in the tournament and is the leading run-scorer with 309 runs and was adjudged the Player of the Tournament.

It was father G Rami Reddy’s vision to condition Trisha’s muscle memory in cricket. “In ball games, you have to play as many balls as possible to imbibe it into your muscle memory,” he tells. “I believe when children are surrounded by certain things at a young age they start grasping them. I thought she would understand where the middle (of the bat) is and would develop that coordination,” he says.
 
When she was around four, he started dragging her to the gym where he worked as an instructor. Then he made a concrete pitch and tied a few nets at the Bhadradri Junior College, where he bowled at least a thousand balls at her. Before he is snap-judged as an overbearing and obsessive father, he puts his pushiness into context. “Usually, everyone starts around eight years but there will be too much competition starting at that stage. So I made sure that she started at two,” he says. “There is only one life and I decided to give her the best,” he adds.
 

In his memoir Black and White: The Way I See It, Richard Williams, the father of Serena and Venus, writes he brought a second-hand tennis racquet even before his first daughter Yetunde was born. Andre Agassi’s father hung tennis balls over his crib, so that his eyes got used to the ball’s movements. László Polgár, a psychologist, started training his three daughters in chess from the age of four, and resolved to prove that women could challenge men through early exposure to the game.

 

Rami Reddy fits into the annals of sports, where the father figure looms big. It’s what helped Trisha become the first U-19 Indian woman cricketer to score an international hundred and India’s brightest spark in the junior T20 World Cup, as well.

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