Uma Chetry

Some Lesser Known Facts About Uma Chetry

• Uma grew up in a financially poor family in Kandulimari village.

• As a child, Uma used to watch her brothers and other boys play cricket on the street and developed an interest in the game.

• Soon, she also started playing cricket with them.

• When Uma’s mother watched her play cricket so well, she encouraged her to take professional training in it.

• Uma enrolled herself in a cricket academy when she was just 8 years old. As their village had no cricketing facility, Uma used to walk 16 km daily to reach the cricket training centre in Bokakhat town after her school hours and then back home.

• In 2011, when she was nine years old, her friends convinced her to move to a hostel, far away from their village. Uma liked the idea of living with her friends and shared the idea with his family. When her father asked, if she would be able to live in the hostel alone without her family, she immediately replied with a ‘Yes’ as she was happy to stay with her friends.

• After a day, her family got to know about a district-level trial which was being held for girls in a nearby village.

• Since she loved playing cricket very much, Uma thought of giving it a try.

• Interestingly, Uma cleared the trials and was shortlisted for the district-level team.

• In the pre-tournament, like most of the players, Uma too chose to become a bowler. However, after watching her bowl, her coach advised her to try her hand at wicketkeeping, a role for which no other player had applied.

• After her selection, Uma decided to pursue cricket as a career and dropped the idea of moving to a faraway hostel with her friends.

• She played a few district matches and then gave auditions for her selection to a state team.

  

• After a string of poor performances, Uma was overlooked in the state team. Although she knew, she would not find a place in the team, she went ahead to check her name on the list at her friends’ insistence. There, she was shattered to see that not only had she failed to find a place in the team, but she was not even one of the standbys. There were four other wicketkeepers chosen ahead of her.

• Disappointed with the result, Uma went back home and shared about her thoughts to quit cricket with her mother. However, her mother motivated her to improve her performance by saying,
  

  Ups and downs are a part of life. It’s important that you learn from this, and learn what you can do to get better. Just because you couldn’t perform and were dropped because of that, you can’t stop playing altogether. Identify where you were lacking, work on it and improve.”

• After the conversation, Uma decided to identify the issues with her game and work on them. Once, she understood the issues, she got back to her training session and tried to improve her game.

• In June 2023, Chetry was a part of the India A squad for the 2023 ACC Women’s T20 Emerging Teams Asia Cup.

  

• A month later, she was named in the Indian squad for India’s T20 International series against Bangladesh.

• In September 2023, she was a part of the Indian squad that won the gold medal at the Asian Games in Hangzhou, China.

  

• In May 2024, Uma was included in India’s ODI, T20I and Test squads for India’s series against South Africa, making her international debut in T20 against South Africa on 7 July 2024. She became the first woman cricketer from Assam and also the first female cricketer from Northeast India to be called up to the Indian national squad.

  

• In October 2024, she was named in the India squad for their home ODI series against New Zealand.

• In the same year, she was bagged by the UP Warriorz or the Women’s Premier League (WPL). Interestingly, just like her international debut for India, Uma was drafted by UP Warriorz as a replacement player after her fellow player Vrinda Dinesh sustained an injury in 2024.

  

• In an interview, Uma revealed that once, while she was on her two-hour-long walk to school with her brother, they were singing songs and bhajans, which were overheard by a passerby who enjoyed them very much. Impressed by their skills, the person invited them to their home to sing at the Shivratri celebration. When they went to his home, the person gave them new school uniforms, some books and a packet of sweets in return for their singing.

• Uma follows a strict workout regimen to maintain her fitness.

• An avid animal lover, she often posts pictures of animals on her Instagram account.

• In an interview, Uma revealed that during her struggling days, she used to work as a daily wage labourer in the fields with the intention of helping her parents financially.

• She quit her studies after passing class 10 to focus on cricket.