Simran Bahadur, full name Simran Dil Bahadur is an emerging all-rounder of the Indian women’s cricket team. Born on the 13th of November, 1999, in Delhi, Simran got her chance to play her first match for the Women’s international cricket team of India in February 2021.
In 2016, Simran joined the cricket academy; a couple of years after joining, she made it into the Indian A Women’s cricket team. Simran is a competent all-rounder, a left-handed batter who can bowl medium right-arm pace bowling. Seeing her ability, it is inevitable that Simran has a bright future ahead in her life and live cricket match video is a clear-cut proof of this point.
Simran Bahadur’s Early Cricketing Days
From her childhood days, Simran was quite involved with sports. In her schooling life, she was engaged in athletics, especially in running. In her younger days, she was pretty motivated to fitness and tried to build the same. Bahadur also used to play cricket with her local boys, apart from being involved in athletics. At that time, Simran was unaware of women’s cricket, but with her close friends’ help, she learned about a cricket academy in Delhi.
At 16, she joined the academy in Delhi, where she met Sharvan Kumar, her cricket coach. She got to practice with the India u19 squad in her first year in the academy. Though in 2016, she could not appear in the U19 cup due to some paperwork reasons. In 2017 she was selected for both the U19 and U23 squads. The most important reason behind her selection in these teams was her great physic, which she had worked on since childhood.
Simran Bahadur’s parents were also pretty supportive. They, along with her elder sister, had supported her a lot so that one day she could be successful as a cricketer in the future.
Simran’s Challenger Trophy Experience
Due to her dominant performances at the domestic level, Simran got the chance to play in the Challenger Trophy in 2018. She became pretty excited when she got to play in that tournament, as it would be only a stone away from playing in the senior Indian women’s team. Though, at times, her main focus was to perform well at the domestic level.
Her All-Rounder Journey
When she started playing cricket, Simran first started as a bowler. Bahadur used to be the leading bowler of her side and bat at number seven, and Simran was an aggressive batter. But her excellent batting ability gradually promoted her to a middle-order batter.
Currently, Simran bats in the middle order or sometimes as an opener and open the bowling attack for the team. Now she enjoys her role as a perfect all-rounder for her team.
Her Role Model In Her Life
Simran is a big fan of Virat Kohli’s batting, and Simran always watches his batting on television when he comes out for batting. Besides Virat, Simran is a big fan of her teammate Harmanpreet Kaur’s batting style, and Simran also wants to be an aggressive batter like Harmanpreet.
Simran’s Favorite Match Among All That She Played To Date
Simran had played many matches to date, so when she was interviewed, she said it was difficult to choose one option. She enjoys being tested; any game that pushes her limits is something she always looks forward to. When she has tough opponents, such as from Mumbai or Andhra, she trains extra hard to ensure she is in her best form. In one of her matches against Andhra, she took two out of the last three wickets, which was one of her best performances to date.
Her 2019 Asia Cup Experience In Bangladesh
After Simran’s dominant performance in the Challengers Trophy, she was selected for the Emerging Asia Cup Tournament squad. After her selection, she was thrilled, and in that tournament, apart from India and Bangladesh, there were Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Indian Women’s team won that tournament, and Simran performed pretty well with the ball and bat.
In February 2021, Simran got her first chance to play for the Indian national team in the limited-overs format against the South African women’s team. In that same series against South Africa, she also got her maiden call-up for the T20I squad in India on the 20th of March 2021.
Simran was selected for the 2022 Women’s Cricket World Cup squad as a stand-by player in New Zealand. Apart from her, two other players were also chosen as stand-by players for that tournament.
Simran’s Entire Cricketing Journey So Far
In the first half of 2020, Simran got to play for India A team in Patna against Thailand. There she showed her ability as a good all-rounder. After the series against Thailand, she was confident about carrying forward her excellent form at the domestic level and got the chance to play for Delhi’s U23 squad. But unfortunately, her starting performance for the team was poor. She scored pretty poorly in the starting four to five matches.
After her poor outing, she became pretty upset with herself. She used to talk with her coach and watch her own batting videos to figure out her mistakes. She spent hours in the nets to work on her skills to perform well in her next match against a strong Andhra team.
When she moved to the Delhi squad, she felt pretty confident while playing against strong opposition, and at that time also, there was no difference. She scored a well-made 75 runs knock against Andhra and proved to everyone her ability again. That match was her turning point because she performed brilliantly in that series after that.
After performing brilliantly in the latter half of the U23 tournament, she got the chance to play in Delhi’s senior women’s team. There also she continued her brilliant form and scored three half-centuries for her side.
Simran Bahadur is a serious talent for the future of the Indian Women’s cricket team. Her dedication and brilliance for the game can make her one of the best all-rounders not in the Indian squad but in the entire women’s cricketing world in future.