Record holder Pooja Vastrakar had in fact started her career as a batter.
The transformation The young Indian star wanted to become a batter to begin with but it was her fast bowling which attracted the attention of her coach who then helped her to hone her bowling skills.
Vastrakar started well but then suffered a couple of career threatening injuries and her career fell by the wayside. However, she bounced back quite quickly on the back of her bowling and the ability to bowl the short of good length on a consistent basis.
The Indian management always knew of her batting talent and tried to give her a few opportunities by promoting her in the batting order.
Turning promise into performance
She finally came good against the mighty Australians on the India tour of the country before the 2022 ODI world cup that gave her a lot of confidence which she translated into performance in India's first match of the ICC Women's ODI World Cup 2022.
When the team faced Pakistan in the WC, India could have suffered their first ever One Day International loss against Pakistan in women's cricket had Pooja Vastrakar not revived the team from a position when they were 114 for 6.
The all-rounder had a partnership of over 100 runs with Sneh Rana and took India to a safe total of 244.
Batting at No. 8, she brought up her half century in the process, becoming the first player to score a half-century while batting at number 8 or lower in the women's World Cup.
Player of the Match on WC debut In an attempt to increase the rate of scoring, she was dismissed while trying to hit Fatima Sana out of the park, but had already done enough for which she received the player of the match award following India's 107 run victory.
Pooja Vastrakar, the Player of the Match, was understandably elated with her match-winning effort.
"I'm very happy, my first player of the match award, in my first WC game. The plan was to somehow try and get to 200. I like to bat in pressure situations, even in domestics, I told the same to Sneh (Rana), to keep the partnership going. The batters told us that the wicket was slow, so the target was 200, but we didn't bat differently."
