After nearly a year of struggling with injury, offspinner Shreyanka Patil is “grateful to be back” after returning to competitive cricket in the WCPL
Ashish Pant11-Sep-2025Shreyanka Patil was in tears before Barbados Royals’ opening game of the Women’s Caribbean Premier League (WCPL) on Sunday. But, unlike on the many occasions she has broken down in the last year, these were tears of relief. After 11 months of being stuck in what felt like be an unending loop of injuries, the 23-year-old was finally back, playing competitive cricket.Patil bowled three wicketless overs of her offspin for 33 runs against Guyana Amazon Warriors. Not great, but in the larger context, the numbers didn’t matter. Patil was just “grateful to be back on the field, playing cricket”.It’s been a torrid year-and-a-half for Patil. To the extent that she had doubts about whether she would play cricket again. There were times she thought of just taking a long break to decide if she wanted to do something else.Related
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The injury cycle began in July last year during a women’s Asia Cup game against Pakistan when she fractured the fourth finger of her left hand. She recovered and was part of India’s T20 World Cup side in October.Patil played the entire tournament, but soon after, she developed Grade 3 shin splints in both legs. That kept her out of the game for three to four months. Just when she go through all the hoops and began training, the issue reappeared and pushed her comeback further away.”Initially, I was fine: ‘okay, I’m getting better, I’m doing well, I’ll be back on the field soon’,” Patil said in an interaction facilitated by FanCode, the official broadcaster of the WCPL. “But once I started getting injured again and again, I was like, ‘what’s happening?'”I didn’t know how to face my parents, especially my dad. I didn’t know how to communicate with my close ones. I was kind of blank at that time.”That wasn’t the end of Patil’s agony. After the shin splints, she got a stress reaction in her wrist. She recovered and was part of a bowlers’ camp with the India team earlier this year. On the first day, after finishing all her tests, she fractured a thumb during a fielding session. In July this year, she was initially named in the India A T20 squad for the three-match series in Australia, but was later ruled out.
“I used to go back to my room, cry, take out my anger and just… I didn’t know how to express my feelings because that was my first time not playing cricket for such a long period”
Patil was prepared to “maybe miss one tournament”, but having to sit on the sidelines for close to a year almost broke her.”I wasn’t sure how long I was going to miss cricket. I thought it was going to be about four to five months,” she said. “Then I had to miss a couple of tournaments. And then they [at the BCCI’s Centre of Excellence in Bengaluru] said maybe a little longer. Whenever they said that, I used to break down because missing games is something I don’t like.”I used to go back to my room, cry, take out my anger and just… I didn’t know how to express my feelings because that was my first time not playing cricket for such a long period. I did get mentally affected.”Before the series of injuries, Patil’s career graph had been on the upswing. She was 20 when she made her debut for Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) in WPL 2023. The same year, she became the first Indian to play in the WCPL and, soon after, she made her India debut in T20Is and ODIs, in December 2023. At WPL 2024, Patil won the Purple Cap for the most wickets in the season as RCB lifted their maiden trophy.Then it came to a standstill, and it shattered Patil, particularly when she couldn’t recover in time for WPL 2025. “Missing out on the WPL was a big breakdown for me,” she said. “I wasn’t ready for it. I was visualising, I was manifesting that we’re going [in as] the defending champions. I didn’t see myself not being a part of the team.
Wonderful to see you at Wimbledon, Shreyanka pic.twitter.com/4zeAULL7Sm
— Wimbledon (@Wimbledon) July 3, 2025