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Indian spinner Radha Yadav spoke at her team meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi following their ICC Women's World Cup win, saying that he talked to the team on their experiences in the tournament and was very "humble and simple".
Radha, who took four wickets in three matches at an average of 35.25, with best figures of 3/30, was speaking to ANI in an interview. Following their women's WC win, PM Modi had met the World Cup winning squad, including coach Amol Muzumdar and Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) president Mithun Manhas, and players had shared their experiences and stories from the tournament with him. Speaking about this meeting, Radha said, "When we met the Prime Minister, he spoke to us very well about what we had faced in this tournament, and he questioned us on our experiences. He was very humble and simple. He served us sweets. We had high tea as well." On her parents' reaction after Team India clinched the trophy, Radha said that they were praying for the WC trophy to come to India and pointed to how her father was celebrating with the trophy in his hand as well. "They want India to win. For them it is not about if their daughter does well or not, India should win and get the trophy. This mindset is in me too. We just need to win a trophy. It is not an individual sport, it is a team sport," he added. Speaking about her team's celebrations after the match, Radha said that the team had dinner near the swimming pool area of their hotel and danced a lot, right till the morning. "Our hotel was just next to it (the stadium). We could see the ground. We had dinner near the swimming pool. We had a good dinner together. We danced a lot and danced so much that we did not realise it was morning. We were also looking at the stadium, that we had won our World Cup here. After signing some stuff for people, we went back to our hotel rooms. When we went out for our travel, we saw so many people," she added. For long, the idea of women's cricket was questioned in the country, perhaps due to frustration of not having won the World Cup. But Harmanpreet Kaur led Team India have turned the trolling, criticism and abuses into applause. Speaking about this turnaround, Radha said, " I went to Mumbai where I started playing cricket. I told them, now let the girls play. They said, yes, absolutely. I laughed a lot. I told them (people) to let girls play freely." In the final match against South Africa, half-centuries from Shafali Verma (87) and Deepti Sharma (58) took India to 298/7 in 50 overs. South Africa were in the hunt with skipper Laura Wolvaardt (101) in sublime touch, but game-changing spells from Shafali (2/36) and Deepti Sharma (5/39) won India their maiden WC title with a 52-run win over the Proteas. (ANI)
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