Star India pacer bags Women’s Emerging Cricketer of the Year award

Indian Women’s Cricket Team’s pacer Renuka Singh has been awarded the Emerging Women’s Cricketer of the Year award as she performed exceptionally well last year. The other contenders Hindi competition were Australia’s Darcie Brown, England’s Alice Capsey and India’s Yastika Bhatia.

The speedster grabbed 40 wickets for team India last year in just 29 matches in the limited-overs format. She took 18 wickets in ODIs at an average of 14.88, out of which eight wickets she snapped in the two matches against the Three Lions and seven in the series against Sri Lanka.

The right-arm seamer bagged Alyssa Healy with an outside edge which went to the slips to Deepti Sharma. She took the wicket of Australia skipper Meg Lanning as well at the point. Later, Opener Beth Mooney and Tahila McGrath also fell to the Indian fast bowler. This match was played at the Commonwealth Games which took place in Birmingham. The fixture was the gold medal match between the two sides. This was her best bowling figure in a T20I.

Renuka Singh to lead India’s bowling line-up in 20-20 World Cup 

Currently, seeing her form, she is an appropriate contender to replace the former India great Jhullan Goswami. The other senior pacer, Shikha Pandey was not in the scheme of things for the selectors as she didn’t play much last year. Going into this year’s  20-20 Women’s World Cup, she will play a crucial role and lead the pace attack as well.

Renuka made her ODI debut in early 2018 but was unable to make to the India XI during their disappointing 50-over World Cup campaign in New Zealand. In that tournament, she took 18 wickets from seven matches in 2022.

The bowler concluded the 2022 season as one of the most effective seamers in women’s cricket after excelling at the T20I level and earning a spot in the ODI team.

With back-to-back four-wicket hauls against England in September, she ended the year on a strong note and showed why she will likely be India’s backbone going forward.