Canada to Chennai: Divya travels to hone skills at Super Kings Academy

CHENNAI: Talk about going the extra mile: Canada women’s cricket team all-rounder Divya Saxena recently made the long journey to Chennai to hone her skills at the famed Super Kings Academy here.

The New Delhi-born Divya, who left India at a young age and took to cricket about six years ago, travelled 12,000-odd kilometres from Calgary, Alberta, to improve her game. Under the tutelage of the academy’s head coach, K Sriram, Divya went through rigorous drills and worked extensively on her batting for nearly two weeks.

“It is very cold in Canada right now. There is a lot of snow. I wanted something completely opposite. I wanted a nice tropical kind of climate. I did not know much about India, in terms of the cricket academies it has. So, I just Googled. With the help of my association (Cricket Canada), I found Chennai and Bengaluru as options. I had been to Bengaluru before, so I thought something new would be nice,” Divya told DT Next.

“Everyone has heard of Chennai Super Kings (the Indian Premier League franchise owns the academy). I saw that academy pop up on Google and I was like ‘this is perfect’. I felt that they would have a proper system and a professional set-up. That is what I was looking for,” said Divya, whose last international assignment was the 2022 Women’s South American Championship, event which Canada (although from North America) won.

Divya, coming from a country where cricket is not a major sport, spent 12 days at the academy in a bid to gain knowledge about the basics and polish her ‘V’ game.

“Just the drill work… just the intense training that players in this country would get. I am a batting all-rounder. Sriram was giving me personal training, we had one-on-one sessions. Basically, I wanted to focus on over-the-cover shot, over-the-bowler shot. So, I was working on those. The drill work for that… the mechanics behind it… trying to execute those shots,” explained Divya.

“I typically trained for about two hours a day. We did a lot of drills, so it was pretty tiring on the body. I also had open net sessions with the Under-19 boys. It was an amazing challenge. Absolutely, it (the time) was worth it. I would have loved to stay longer. I would love to come back to Chennai. I enjoyed the weather and the coconut water I had.”

She also expressed her gratitude to Cricket Canada and the Super Kings Academy for setting up the “amazing” opportunity. “Cricket is growing at a faster pace than before in Canada. What happens in India has an influence over there, in terms of cricket. We have some exciting stuff (tournaments for the national team) coming up,” said Divya.