Former Australian women’s national cricket team all-rounder Lisa Sthalekar has taken the advisor role of Rajasthan Royals’ youth and junior cricket programmes.
In last October, the Indian Premier League (IPL) side Rajasthan Royals launched their youth programmes. They set up Royals Colts for the boys and Royal Sparks for the girls. India-born Lisa Sthalekar was present in the felicitation ceremony for the selected youngsters. Around 3,000 children participated in the trials in Jaipur.
Selected children were present in the high-performance training camp in Nagpur. In that camp, the franchise coaches taught them. All the participants also attended the nutrition and mental conditioning sessions.
Now, the franchise has appointed Lisa Sthalekar as the “Advisor – Youth Cricket” for the junior cricket programmes. Sthalekar will now create a yearly plan for the Royals Colts and Royals Sparks. Some of her responsibilities in this list are creating high-performance camps, competitions etc.
To encourage the youngsters in cricket, Sthalekar will also organise the school tournaments.
The franchise has welcomed the former Australian women’s all-rounder. They are confident about her work.
Rajasthan Royals’ Executive Chairman, Ranjit Barthakur said, “We welcome Lisa to the Royals family and we are confident that with her efforts the team will continue to progress and excel in building a nationwide programme where every talented kid can come and showcase their skills, get mentored and trained by the best professionals in the sport.”
Lisa Sthalekar is also happy to take this role.
She said, “I am extremely pleased to join Rajasthan Royals as an advisor. I am looking forward to my role of identifying and nurturing cricketing talent, especially the girls, so that they can make a mark for themselves in the cricketing world.”
Lisa Sthalekar had a shining cricket career
Lisa Sthalekar played international cricket for Australia women from 2003 to 2013. She played eight Tests, 125 ODIs and 54 T20Is where she scored 416, 2,728 and 769 runs respectively and also took 23, 146 and 60 wickets respectively. Sthalekar was the first player to achieve the double milestone – 1,000 runs and 100 wickets in Women’s ODI career. She is also a reputed commentator.
Sthalekar also led the Australia women’s national cricket team in three ODIs. She represented the national team in three Women’s Cricket World Cups (2005, 2009 and 2013) out of which Australia women’s won two crowns.
Sthalekar was also a part of Australia women’s ICC Women’s World T20 victories in 2010 and 2012.