Pari, 10, hopes her dream gets wings

Sunit Dhawan

Rohtak, November 30

The inaugural match of the Santosh Bahl Memorial Cricket Tournament was played between the teams of Legends Club and RCA Dimana here today.

What made the match unusual was the presence of a 10-year-old girl — Pari Sharma. “She is the only girl cricketer in all the eight teams participating in the event,” says Manoj Bahl, the organiser.

The story of Pari is quite similar to that of the famous Phogat sisters. Like the Phogat sisters, Pari is also coached by her father, Pardeep Sharma, who was a cricketer himself.

Also, like them, Pari competes with boys owing to the scarcity of girl cricketers in the region. “I have been playing cricket for more than six years,” says Pari, who is a student of Class V at Vaish High School here.

An all-rounder, Pari plays for Gurukripa Academy where she is trained by Harish Rathee.

Pari is all set to play for the under-15 cricket team of Punjab and eventually wants to be a member of Team India.

Virat Kohli and MS Dhoni are her ideals and she is inspired by international women cricketers Sophie Devine from New Zealand and Harmanpreet Kaur of India. Asked whether she had to face any problems or difficulties while playing with boys, Pari replied in the negative. Though she is just 10 years old, Pari already has nearly 4.5 lakh followers on social media. “She is a born cricketer and has an average of above 63 and a strike rate of above 96,” said Pardeep Sharma.