Meet Rituparna Roy, The New Coach Of Vidarbha’s Women Cricket Team

The former Bengal and East Zone skipper Rituparna Roy is appointed as the coach of Vidarbha Women’s Cricket team, Vidarbha Cricket Association (VCA) announced. Roy is a former India ‘A’ cricketer, and had displayed stellar performance during the last season with Bengal as she guided them to Senior Women and Under-23 one-day titles. Now Roy is eyeing to carry forward the future of Vidarbha Women's Cricket in the region and their hope to do well after their senior girls failed to get laurels last season, TOI reported.

Key Takeaways:

• Rituparna Roy, a former India ‘A’ cricketer, is appointed as the coach of Vidarbha Women’s cricket team.
• The former Bengal and East Zone skipper guided Bengal team to Senior Women and Under-23 one-day titles in the last season.
• Based on her stellar performance, Roy is chosen to coach the Vidarbha women's cricket in the region and to meet higher expectations after their senior girls failed to get laurels last season

Roy and previous wins

A fabulous cricketer Roy is steadily achieving her place as a coach in the region. Previously, she mentored the U-19 Bengal girls’ team who went on to win the title.

Four months ago, Roy led Bengal Under-23 to victory for the title in the one-day U-23 Women's League tournament and the Knock-Out Tournament in Nagpur. Her team went against Mumbai, which had India opener and an extremely talented star Jemimah Rodrigues on their side. Under Roy's guidance, Bengal did a remarkable job in keeping up the form in an exciting final despite having to compete with the Mumbai’s rising cricketer. This, after Bengal won the title of Senior Women after a gap of 35 years. In the semi-final, Bengal faced off most of the current and experienced players in India and defeated them in style.

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“I can only say Bengal's loss is Vidarbha's gain. Rituparna did a great job with Bengal girls last year. She managed star players like Jhulan Goswami and Deepti Sharma extremely well besides guiding several talented girls.

Now after witnessing this form of her mentoring, Vidarbha team grabbed the opportunity to appoint Roy to take revenge of the last lost game.

“I can only say Bengal's loss is Vidarbha's gain. Rituparna did a great job with Bengal girls last year. She managed star players like Jhulan Goswami and Deepti Sharma extremely well besides guiding several talented girls. She has been coaching various states teams overs the years. Wherever she has gone, Rituparna has made a difference. I am sure, Vidarbha girls will benefit with her vast experience,” senior BCCI umpire Premdip Chatterjee, a native of Bengal, told TOI.

Roy, a quality coach

After the girls lost the game, the VCA officials did not want to take any risk so they approached to have a quality coach who could mentor the girls properly. The Vidarbha Under-23 team, consisted of nine senior girls, struggled to match other teams' form and speed. “We wanted to have someone who has sound technical knowledge besides good man management skills. Rituparna has both. She has good communication skills and she has a vast experience of coaching. I am sure our girls will be benefited from her experience and knowledge. Shrabani has also been doing well as a coach for the last few years. We got good feedback about her coaching skills from our various sources. It's good to have such quality coaches for our girls. Hope they take our girls to the next level,” a VCA source said.

Head coach Chandrakant Pandit, who is overall in charge of Vidarbha cricket this season, conducted a preparatory camp for the girls, and Rituparna has passed wonderfully.

Head coach Chandrakant Pandit, who is overall in charge of Vidarbha cricket this season, conducted a preparatory camp for the girls, and Rituparna has passed wonderfully. “The girls are getting same facilities as boys. In fact, they practised with our Under-14 and Under-16 boys. Besides, technical aspects the girls have also been getting help on mental aspects of the game,” the source added.