Sudha Shah expresses her elation on receiving the BCCI lifetime achievement award

Born to a Gujarati father and Malayali mother, Shah grew up in Chennai and started playing tennis-ball cricket with the boys of her colony in Nungambakkam. Once, her friends along with Sudha heard of the Women's Cricket Association being formed, she became determined and they adapted to playing with hard-ball after that. After joining the Indian Women's cricket team, she served her tenure as a prominent player along with Shanta Rangaswamy and Diana Edulji and also played for Tamil Nadu starting in 1973 to 1997. And for her contributions to the game of cricket, Shah will be receiving the prestigious award in Bengaluru on 12th June.

“The lifetime achievement award was very unexpected. But, of course, I am elated. It's nice to be recognised. Those days, we played a lot of cricket with a lot of dedication. For us to now be recognised for our efforts, it feels really good," she mentioned in an interaction with the TOI.

After being a solid player for the team, she started her coaching career in 1998 and has been involved in many significant stints with various teams. Sudha admitted that once she got involved with cricket, there was no way back. 

“All those difficulties were there. But looking back, it was all part of our growing up. It taught us a lot. Now of course, the kids get good facilities and grounds. The access to gyms, swimming pools and whatever else is there. We used to just do a bit of limbering up. Fitness wasn't given that much attention. We just used to do our batting, bowling, and fielding,"