Former Cricketer Snehal Pradhan: Women Need To Lift Each Other Up To Create A Mark

Former cricketer, commentator, sports journalist and YouTuber Snehal Pradhan says women need to support each other to succeed. We couldn’t agree more!

“Being really good at what we do is the best support,” says former cricketer Snehal Pradhan. It is very easy for women to see each other as competitions but it is a narrow way to see each other. The world constantly pits women against each other.

At such times, the best women should do is create a mark for themselves. The better a woman is at her job, the more opportunities she ends up creating for other women. It is good to share whatever knowledge we have, the more knowledge is shared, the more it spreads. And it is beneficial for both the parties. It is a win-win. Helping each other with a generous outlook helps women to help and uplift themselves.

Cricket was always her refuge

Cricket is not a viable career option especially for women. She had to take the safety of a government job. Thus, she worked with the railways for nine years. Balancing both these commitments were a challenge but she took everything in her stride. Travelling continuously and at the same time managing her job were tedious. But she handled everything with grace. With any sport, injuries are common. Her injuries did give her a setback but she persevered.

Life has been a very different experience for Pradhan post her retirement from cricket. Currently, she is a sports journalist, a commentator and runs her own YouTube channel: Cricket with Snehal.

From a story to a storyteller

“From being a story to being a storyteller, it has been a new experience,” she says. In a media industry, one has to put themselves out in the world. For Pradhan, being a part of the media and journalism industry, feels like being a part of the new team.

”Like any activity, you are not good at it when you start. The more you do it the better you get,” added Pradhan on being asked on how she manages to excel in all the things she does. All these facets are new for her. She does not have any formal training in any of these. What she did was invest time in herself and teach herself the skills.

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The internet was her friend. For videos, she taught herself how to edit, light exposure, production and everything. As for journalism, reading was the best way to increase her skills. Whenever she read something and felt like incorporating it in her articles, she noted it down. Comparing her former work to what she does now, she believes that she has come a long way and has progressed in it all.

She was always a writer

Pradhan always wrote back in school. She wrote and blogged even while she played. But it never crossed her mind to make a career out of writing. She wanted to give more coverage to Women’s Cricket because it hardly gets any coverage.

The World Cup in 2017 made people realise that there is something like Women’s Cricket and finally everyone jolted out of their sleep. The transition from having a permanent fixed salary paying job to being a freelancer wasn’t a rosy one. But taking up challenges is what she has always done and she took it up.

Every day is a learning experience for her.

In hindsight, she says that she has done a lot of things. She is happy with what she has done but she humbly says that she could have done better.

Intrigued by Snehal’s story? She will be speaking at the Orange Flower Festival 2020 in Mumbai on 25th January.

Orange Flower Festival 2020 is the annual event brought to you by Women’s Web. An event where women come together and roar for a change and have a ton of fun with it. A daylong fest in Mumbai, our speaker list is amazing with men and women who’re wonderful as they are great!

What’s more is that we also have a poetry slam, an open mic, an art installation to boot! Book your tickets here.

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