Born on Christmas Eve, December 24, 2006 in the Canadian City of
Surrey, British Columbia (BC), Mannat Hundal started playing cricket
when she was about eleven years old. Initially, Mannat never took
cricket at all seriously, simply because of her belief that there wasn’t any
future in it.
Mannat only started playing after watching her brother’s games. Cricket
having always been in her family with everyone watching matches together
on television or trudging out as a unit to see her brother play. Giving it a
try by playing herself was, therefore, a most natural thing for Mannat to do.
In the beginning, when she started Mannat found herself playing matches
but doing nothing more than standing at deep third man for an entire game.
She, however, started taking her cricket much more seriously when she
represented her Province, BC, for the very first time about two years ago
and was subsequently selected to go to Nationals. Ever since then, she has
really been taking cricket seriously by putting a lot of time and effort into it.
Personally for Mannat, the biggest factor that has led to her very impressive progression in Canadian Women’s cricket thus far has been her consistency in attending practices. Despite her very young age, as a mere fifteen-year-old, she has already fully recognized and totally appreciated the importance
of practicing regularly for honing her craft as a leg spinner. “It’s super easy
to lose your consistency, your action, your variations if you take long
breaks,”she says with a degree of wisdom that belies her teenaged youth.
Mannat’s Club, the Surrey-based Stallions Cricket Academy, has really
helped her a lot with all its coaches providing outstanding support. Her
personal Coach Kaleem Sana, who is himself a member of the Canadian
National Men’s team, has always taken the time to help Mannat improve
her game. Her parents as well, have always supported her growth and
development. They take her to all the practices and games and have never
placed any restrictions on her participation in out-of-province tournaments
even though she is still so very young. Apart from her local BC- based
support, another National player and now teammate, Achini Perera, has
been continuously advocating for youths like Mannat. For Achini’s provided
unconditional support, Mannat has, therefore, been extremely grateful.
For Mannat, as a fifteen-year-old, to have already represented Canada was
by itself already an astounding accomplishment. For her to have gone even
further in winning a Player Of The Match Award at the Brazil-hosted 2022 South American Women’s T20 Championships, her debut tour, was simply icing to the already delicious cake of a blossoming career of immense potential. Winning the trophy with her Canadian teammates was an amazing experience for Mannat. An experience that has also had the desirous effect of whetting her appetite for many repetitions of such international triumphs in the foreseeable future.
As to her own self-assessment of her performances during the recent Brazil tournament, while she recognizes that there is still a lot of room for improvement she feels that she performed pretty well for what was her very first international tour. Such new experiences will be invaluable in contributing to improving her game as she takes it further steps forward.
With the future in mind, now that she has made the Canadian National team, Mannat has
already started formulating her plans, outlining her ambitions and setting objectives for
the reminder of her cricket career. Beyond playing on the Canadian National team, her
other goals will encompass playing cricket all over the world, including many of the new
Women’s League franchises that have opened up.
Mannat harbours absolutely no doubts as to what will be the necessary keys for her
to possess in order to fully achieve her most admirably set lofty ambitions and
to continue developing and improving as a Canadian Women’s cricketer. “I
have to keep practicing and putting in the same if not more time and effort
in order to develop my all-round game! Young players, especially, like
me and Rhea have to keep working hard if we want to take women’s
cricket further!”
Mannat and Rhea Misra met each other during this year’s Canadian
Women’s Nationals Championships and then again as teammates for
the Brazil tour. She feels lucky to have met another fellow Women’s
cricketer that’s of the same age as her. Not surprisingly the two
teenagers gelled, becoming ever so close over the 2-week period. They
now both hope to keep working hard together to take Women’s cricket
further.
“There are a lot of League opportunities in Women’s cricket which I hope to
play in someday. As a group, the Canadian Women’s team have to focus on
the ICC Qualifiers coming up sometime next year and hopefully bring that
trophy home too!”
More words of wisdom and admirably expressed ambition from Mannat
Hundal, an obviously prodigiously talented emerging Canadian Women’s
cricket, teenaged sensation. And one with a bright future now seemingly
ahead and well within her grasp!