“It comes naturally to me,” Ghosh, who is currently part of the India side playing an ODI tri-series against Sri Lanka and South Africa in Colombo, says about her power-hitting skills. “Maybe I got it from Papa, because he too liked hitting sixes. And my idol is MS Dhoni, who is known for his sixes and finishing skills.”
Richa Ghosh has engraved her name in the most powerful players of the Indian women cricket team. Until a few years ago, a six or a spell of good runs never caught a bug among the spectators. However, this 21-year-old represented the revolution of Women’s cricket.
Known for her destructive batting and impressive ability to hit sixes, she has also achieved national and international recognition. However, this young talent is determined to go further, drawing inspiration from her idols – MS Dhoni and Ellyse Perry.
A Strong Foundation: Family Support and Early Years
Richa’s cricketing journey began at an early stage, driven largely by support from her family. Manabendra, her father was a club level cricketer, and a part-time cricketer based out of Siliguri. He would take her along to matches, never he knew that she was an upcoming revolutionary cricketer. Ghosh initially found herself being pushed towards table tennis, a sport she didn’t enjoy. Upon expressing her desire to pursue cricket, her father enrolled into the Baghajatin Athletic Club in Siliguri, the starting point of her cricketing journey.
Breaking Through Cricket
Ghosh’s natural talent for cricket became evident at a young age. Richa often used to travel to Kolkata for her tournaments, her father made sure that he should be available for her all time, he closed down his business. At the age of 13, she was playing for Bengal’s Under-19 team, and at 16, she became the second-youngest debutant for India in T20Is. While looking back to her early days, she tried her hands on all the three units: batting, bowling and wicket keeping. She was a medium-fast bowler, vividly remembers bowling alongside Jhulan Goswami. While taking up a lot of wickets, few at the state level clouded her to give up keeping and focus on bowling. But her father was the one who inspired her to follow what she wanted and felt right.
Ghosh also emphasized the need for improvement when playing for international cricket, when she realized her ground fielding was well below par. Her coaches helped her to find the best for her- Wicket Keeping.
Aiming Higher: Emulating Idols MS Dhoni and Ellyse Perry
Ghosh has already accomplished a lot in her career but still has a lot to make progress to. During the 2025 WPL, while representing Royal Challengers Bengaluru, she showcased lightning-fast glovework reminiscent of Dhoni, sprinting to the stumps and running out Sophie Ecclestone when the UP Warriorz needed just one run off the last ball. During the WPL, she has the chance to share the dressing room with her other idol- Ellyse Perry. The first thing she ever did after meeting her while being a debutant for the Indian team in T20I in 2020 was take a moment to click a photograph for the memory.
A major area that drew her from the ODI squad and for the T20Is in the Commonwealth Games, was her fitness. But later, she actively trained to get fitter drawing inspiration from Ellyse game and fitness.
“One thing I worked on was staying at the crease for longer periods. My natural instinct is to see the ball, hit the ball. But if I go in early, say the 12th over of a T20I, I should be able to bat till the end.”
Through focus and determination, she honed her ODI skills to perfection. Batting at No. 3, she scored a career-best 96 against Australia at the Wankhede in 2023- the performance that led India’s head coach, Amol Muzumdar to declare that position 3 is best for her.
However, she was again dropped down the order, which made everyone believe that she can do it down the order as well. Since 2021, she’s been a hard hitter for most number of sixes and highest strike rate that can ever come from an Indian ODI Batter. She jointly holds the world record for the fastest T20I 50 off 18 balls and has made India’s fastest ODI fifty.
Skipper Harmanpreet Kaur once added that she thinks that one who can be better than her is Richa, because she can sense the game well. Fearless against both pace and spin, Ghosh dominates quick bowlers by hitting straight down the ground, while dispatching spinners over deep midwicket with powerful slog sweeps. Recently, she has taken her game to another level, adding the scoop, reverse scoop, and reverse sweep to her arsenal -becoming a true 360-degree batter.
The Future: A World Cup Dream
Richa’s dream ambitions are clear. She wants to help lead the Indian women’s cricket team to World Cup glory once again. While she missed the New Zealand ODI series to take her 12th examinations, she will be well set for the upcoming ODI World Cup at home. In 2023, she had already tasted the success when the team won U-19 World Cup in South Africa, but this time she’s again gearing up to claim it.
“At the U-19 World Cup we got to know what winning a trophy feels like,” she says. “Now the goal is to win a World Cup with the senior team. We always prepare with that in mind, but somewhere we have been lacking a bit. Hopefully we can do it this time.”
(Quotes sourced from ESPN Cricinfo)
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