Lisa Sthalekar is an Australian cricket commentator and former cricketer and captain of Australia’s international women’s cricket team.
This is the journey of an orphan girl who became the Captain of the Australian Cricket team. Yes, it’s hard to believe, but it is true.
On 13 August 1979, a baby girl was abandoned near the door of an orphanage in Pune, “Srivatsav Orphanage”. The parents were unknown. Someone just threw the baby and fled. However, the manager of the orphanage named this small girl as ‘Laila’.
Luckily, few days later an American couple came to visit India. Haren and Sue wanted to adopt a boy as the couple already had a girl. However, they did not find a boy in the orphanage. On the other hand, when Sue looked at Laila, she fell in love with this girl child. She fell for her bright brown eyes and innocent face.
Very soon, the couple decide to adopt Laila and completed all the legal proceedings and left to America. After reaching US, the couple changed the name of ‘Laila’ to ‘Lisa’. However, after a few years they settled in Sydney permanently.
Haren taught ‘Lisa’ to play cricket as he was very passionate for cricket himself. Lisa started her journey of cricket from her home park to playing with the street boys. She was equally good at academics too. After completing her academics, she concentrated more on cricket.
Firstly, her ability to bat well, spoke on behalf of her. Later her records spoke for her. She played her debut Match in 1997 for New South Wales. Then she played her first ODI for Australia in 2001. She played her first test match in 2003 and first T20 match in 2005. ‘Lisa’ played in eight test matches, and scored 416 runs and took 23 wickets. She played in 125 ODI’s and scored 2728 runs and took 146 wickets.
Lisa Sthalekar is the first woman cricketer to take 1000 runs and 100 wickets in one day. According to the ICC’s ranking system she was world’s number one all-rounder. She also played for Australian World Cup.
Her team won the Cricket World Cup in 2013. However, the very next day she bid goodbye to international cricket. The International Cricket Council (ICC) has inducted Lisa Sthalekar into its Hall of Fame.
As the saying goes, each person comes with their own destiny, this abandoned ‘beti’ from India’s orphanage went out to become the Hall of Fame in Australia. Hats off Lisa Sthalekar, the Captain!
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