Renuka Singh Thakur, one of the most highly sought-after Indian bowlers at the inaugural Women’s Premier League auction in 2023, hit a wall so hard she asked her captain, Smriti Mandhana, to send her home. It was during that brutal first WPL season, a period where Singh struggled so much with her form and an injury that she just couldn’t make sense of anything happening around her.
“Yaar, I Don’t Want to Play”: The Breaking Point
Imagine coming into a league as a top pick, an “ICC Women’s Emerging Cricketer of the Year” no less, and then within weeks, you’re begging to leave. That’s exactly where Renuka Singh found herself. She opened up on Flimygyaan, detailing how the injury combined with a string of poor returns just broke her. “I remember going to Smriti and saying that I don’t want to play, I am not able to perform,” Renuka recalled. And get this: Mandhana, who was going through her own rough patch, shot back, “not like I am performing either.” But it didn’t stop there. Renuka escalated it, “So I went to her, I said to her, ‘Yaar, I don’t want to play. Please send me home. I can’t do this anymore.’” You can feel the sheer frustration, the mental and emotional exhaustion just pouring out of her.
Smriti Mandhana Refused to Let Her Walk Away
This is where the captain steps up. Mandhana could’ve just let her go, given her own struggles. But she didn’t. Renuka credits Mandhana’s response with keeping her in the game. Mandhana sat her down and delivered a gut punch of a question: “Look, if I send you back today, then from here, do you want your name, your whole career, to be finished? Or do you want to grow further?” Singh admitted she wanted to grow but felt her mental peace was shot at that moment. Mandhana wasn’t having it. “She said, ‘Look, I’ve seen so many players who give up. But if you stay here, I don’t want you to give up. If you face this thing, tomorrow you’ll come out different,’” Renuka recounted, adding that Mandhana insisted she’d thank her later for the tough love. The compromise? Renuka wouldn’t play in that moment, but she wouldn’t leave either. “Don’t play me now, at least don’t play me,” Singh pleaded. Mandhana’s reply: “Fine, you want me not to play you but don’t talk about leaving, don’t go back. Face this thing.” Talk about a leader pushing you past your limits.
That first WPL season was no joke for anyone, especially Renuka. The pressure of her ₹1.5 crore price tag, the third-most expensive player in RCB’s squad behind Mandhana and Richa Ghosh, was immense. “I was sold for so much money so that was additional pressure,” she said. “I never got this much money so that was more pressure that a team has trusted me so much and bought me for so much money and I was not able to perform.” RCB ultimately lost their opening game by 60 runs to Delhi Capitals and finished fourth of five in the league stage. It was a brutal initiation, but Mandhana’s intervention clearly carved a different path for Singh’s career.
This article was created with AI assistance and published under Seattle On Tap’s editorial standards. See our Editorial Policy.
Originally reported by Yahoo Sports.
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