Uma Chetry was barely a couple of years old when she started playing cricket at her residence in Bokakhat in Assam’s Golaghat district. While her elder siblings would play the sport on the kutcha roads of the village, she would emulate them indoors.
Using a stick as a makeshift bat, Uma would send big round potatoes whizzing past unsuspecting family members as she hit fours and sixes at will. When she turned three, her mother Dipa bought her a plastic bat and a ball, and Uma made it a point to practice everyday.
“We soon realised that she is fond of cricket. She would play with the local boys of her age and often discuss a thing or two with her elder brothers,” Dipa tells Sportstar. Back then, Dipa of course did not imagine that someday Uma would pursue the sport seriously and make it to India’s national squad. On Sunday evening, as Uma made it to the India senior women’s squad for its tour of Bangladesh, hard work and determination paid off for the Chetrys.
