Meet Anuradha Doddaballapur, a cardiovascular scientist from Bengaluru and Germany’s cricket captain

Anuradha is also the first woman to pick up four consecutive wickets in T20 Internationals

“Agathe Agathe Aithu!! (‘It will happen, it will happen, it hashappened!!’ in Kannada)” began a tweet from the official handle of German Women’s Cricket last August. Their captain had just accomplished a feat that no other woman in international cricket has: four wickets in four balls in a T20 International. As the lower-ranked Austria floundered at 40/3 in 14 overs, chasing 198 at the Seebarn Cricket Centre, she wrecked them further in the next over with a four-wicket maiden. In the 18th over, the medium-pacer picked up one more to finish with an astonishing bowling figure (three overs, two maidens, one run, and five wickets). Whoever was tweeting from the German Women's Cricket team account wanted to pay Anuradha Doddaballapur a little tribute in her mother tongue.

More accolades awaited Anuradha. She led the team to a commanding 5-0 series win that witnessed a slew of records: two hat-tricks, first T20I century, first T20I five-for, and an unbeaten opening partnership across all T20Is. Another 5-0 win over France this year extended the team’s T20I winning streak to 14. The hitherto little-known German cardiovascular scientist was getting interview requests for an accomplishment in a game, which for her is a “serious hobby”.

But cricket captured her interest before science.