The India and RCB allrounder and self-professed rebel is the queen of comebacks
Hemant Brar16-Jun-2025When Sneh Rana dismissed Anushka Sanjeewani to seal India’s victory in the ODI tri-series final in Colombo last month, she raised her right arm, lowered her sleeve and revealed a tattoo. Inked in Devanagari, just below her wrist, it read – which translates to “rebel”.”If someone says something cannot be done, my automatic response is [to ask] why it cannot be done,” offspin-bowling allrounder Rana says. “It can be done. I rebel.”The tri-series was the latest in a long line of comebacks for her. Playing white-ball cricket after almost a year and a half, she took 15 wickets in five games and was the Player of the Series. Five of those wickets came against South Africa, a career best, for which she was named Player of the Match, becoming only the third Indian after Smriti Mandhana and Deepti Sharma with a match award in all three formats.Related
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Soon after the series ended, Rana made another comeback. When India announced their squad for the England tour, she found a place in the T20I side after more than two years out of it. is not Rana’s only tattoo. The old adage tells us to treat our bodies like temples, but Rana treats hers like a journal, chronicling significant moments of her life on it in permanent ink. She made her India debut in 2014, but about two years later, she suffered a knee injury that kept her off the field for a year. People started to say her career was over. During that time she got a tattoo of an anchor on her left forearm with “I refuse to sink” written next to it.Read my arm: Rana is something of a tattoo aficionado”That one year was very difficult,” she says of the time she was out. “It was very important to stay calm and patient. In such times, people around you are equally important. I was fortunate to have my parents with me. They never let me feel down.”Rana stayed afloat and kept making waves in domestic cricket. It took her five years to stage a comeback, but she returned stronger. The bowling action was a bit more side-on; she put more body into it and gave the ball a proper rip.In her first game on return, her Test debut, in Bristol, she took four wickets in England’s only innings. When India followed on, she scored 80 not out from No. 8 and helped save the match. She impressed in the ODIs and T20Is as well. Ramesh Powar, India women’s coach then, called her “the find of the series”.It was an emotional roller coaster for Rana. A month before she was picked for the England tour, she lost her father, whom she was very close to. The date of his death is inked in Roman numerals on her left arm. “You know how a father-daughter relation is,” she says. “My dad always supported me, encouraged me, and protected me from all the negative things. He wanted me to play for India again. But when it happened, he was not there to witness it.
“When you lose a parent all of a sudden, it is not easy to accept. I struggled with it. There were times when I stepped onto the field and did not know what was happening around me. At the back of my mind, I was still thinking about my father.”Rana sought the help of Mugdha Bavare, a sports psychologist who was on the team’s support staff. Opening up made her feel better. Later she also consulted a psychiatrist. “There are phases when you feel your body needs it,” Rana says about seeking help. “Things were piling up, and I could not handle them on my own.”Seeing a mental-health professional may no longer be a matter of shame in India but Rana wants to further normalise it. “If you are not well physically, you visit the doctor, right? Then why can’t you take help when you are struggling mentally? There is nothing wrong with it. And it is not necessary that you speak to them only when you are going through a rough phase. You can do it for your growth as well.”Another topic she wants to raise awareness about is the challenges female cricketers face during their menstrual cycles. When playing while on their periods, many have to take painkillers and use heat patches. Rana herself suffers from severe cramps.”During the first match of the Sri Lanka tri-series I was on the first or second day of my cycle,” she says. “It was my comeback match, so despite all the discomfort and pain, I gave whatever I had in me and by God’s grace got three crucial wickets.”When dropped, Rana has chosen to focus on self-improvement and upskilling•PTI Studies have shown that chances of injury are higher for female athletes during and just before menstruation, which means players need to adjust their training routines accordingly. “[Just before menstruation], we reduce the intensity of the training and focus on recovery,” Rana says. “During menstruation, unless it’s a match day, we prioritise rest and do only light movement. During ovulation, we work more on conditioning and joint stability. [After menstruation], we train hard, as a woman’s body can generate the best output in this phase. Throughout the month, we keep working on our skills, though the intensity may vary.”The current version of Rana – one who speaks her mind openly, wants to discuss difficult topics, and makes Instagram reels on the latest trends – is a contrast to the shy girl who grew up in Sinaula, a village in Uttarakhand. The one who hid behind a tree when asked to bowl after a local match.But once she left the state, which did not have a women’s domestic team back then, to play for Haryana, followed by Punjab and Railways, she developed an awareness of the way the world works. Patience is a virtue she has developed over the years. “[It] is my biggest strength,” she says, and indeed, she has exactly that declaration tattooed, in Sanskrit, on her right forearm: “.” She has learned to bide her time after setbacks – of which there have been many.At the 2022 T20 Asia Cup in Bangladesh, she took seven wickets in six games at an economy of 4.09. Still, she was dropped for the series that followed, five T20Is against Australia at home.Rana was a travelling reserve for the 2023 T20 World Cup in South Africa. Only when Pooja Vastrakar was ruled out of the semi-final against Australia was she drafted in. She bowled four wicketless overs for 33 runs in a game India lost. That, in February 2023, remains her last T20I. By the end of the year, she had lost her place in the ODI side too.The reasons for her being dropped were never made public. One can only guess that perhaps with Deepti Sharma in the XI, the team did not need another offspin-bowling allrounder.During the 2025 WPL, Rana scored 26 off six balls against UP Warriorz•BCCIBut do the captain, coach, or selectors have a chat with a player when they are dropped?”When they rest you, they definitely call,” Rana says. What she leaves unsaid is clear, but she has learned to be pragmatic about disappointments like these. “This system has been there for a long time. It will take some time for things to change.”She knows selection is not in her control and chooses to direct her energy to improving her game.”The way cricket is evolving, you have to upgrade your skills and practise accordingly,” she says. “So I learned the yorker, wide yorker, and things like using the crease, using the seam, cutting the pace off, bowling a straighter one.”Rana honed those skills in the nets and tested them in domestic cricket. That gave her the confidence to execute them in pressure situations in international cricket. A prime example is the 2022 Commonwealth Games semi-final in Birmingham. England needed 14 from the final over with five wickets in hand. India had only three outfielders because of their slow over rate. But Rana nailed her yorkers, and despite a dropped catch and a last-ball six when the game was effectively over, she conceded only nine. The win ensured India’s silver medal.A batting upgrade was seen during the 2025 WPL. After going unsold at the auction – a rarity for an India international – she joined Royal Challengers Bengaluru as a replacement player. The team management asked her to prepare for “cameo roles” with the bat, and Rana aced the assignment. From No. 10 against UP Warriorz in her second batting innings of the season, she smashed 26 off six balls with three sixes and two fours. It was the first time in 49 innings across international cricket and the WPL that she had hit a six. Rana’s innings threatened to get RCB to their target of 226, but they eventually fell short by 13. She also took six wickets in her five games at an economy of 8.22. All that, and the performance in Sri Lanka, got her back into the T20I side for the England tour.The patience has paid off. Now it is time for Sneh Rana to channel her inner .