Chinelle Henry: A Fierce and Entertaining Cricket Star :

She loves the entertainment. The energy excites her. The vibes please her.

That is another set of quotes and mantras that resonate with the life of the new stand out in the Women's Premier League. Chinelle Henry has been around the international circuit for a while. The Jamaican at 29 years has had her fast sprints on the feild are visible, and so were the brisk lower order runs that she would add. But in no format or league had the bowling all rounder and ever made such an early impression with the bat than her 23-ball 62 against Delhi Capitals at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium.

For her it did not matter that she singlehandedly changed the trend of all teams batting first loosing. Or even that her own powers came to the spotlight. What was of far greater importance was the fact that through a barrage of gigantic sixes she showcased the sacred culture of her land.

“Entertainment is central for us because that's how we are and how we thrive,” Henry said. “When we are entertaining, when we are having fun, that is when we are at our best. That is our culture, that is our roots. We just come here, we do it, and everybody seems to like it. It has been good, we have been performing, so now it is just about continuing to do that; explosive entertainment energy. It is something we do back home and that is what we try to share with the world as much as we can, wherever we go.”

For a nation that likes its fun fast and entertaining, cricket might not be the most captivating sport. For her, a former competitor in track and field, meeting cricket was by chance, merely an extension of all the things she tried to copy from the boys in the neighborhood. Some reasons Henry does not know, she had been able to perfectly catch a cricket ball and that started her affection towards the sport at age 13.

The youngsters continued to play with her till the age of 15 when the coach had no choice but to make her represent at an injury-mitigating level. “By that age, the boys have grown huge. When you’re playing against boys and you’re doing better than them, their ego is like, ‘No, she’s a girl, there’s no way, and then they just started trying to hurt you and intimidate you.” I was just a scared little girl not knowing what was happening, and fortunate to have that support system of the coaches and even my parents at that time—even though they were a little iffy with boys coming at me. A cricket ball is hard… everything is hard.”

“For a while, the board didn’t let the girls play with the boys since they thought it was too dangerous. And I could understand why they would say that. All of that fueled their desire to recruit more girls just to have an all-girls team, just so that girls could play. I’m just grateful to be part of the time when I was one of those females to play with boys because that’s where I feel I get the toughness, like if you get a hit, you get up, you go again, that kind of thing.”
Life for Henry has changed from being an intimidating girl, to now an intimidating bowler to the best around the globe. As someone who can shift the energy of a match in the final few overs, she’s an incredibly uncommon sight for a woman’s cricket No 8 batter. With two back-to-back innings against Capitals, Henry served a warning of her explosive batting skills, making both her teammates and the opposition question why they would want to bowl to her in the middle overs, when two or three overs is all she needs to stack up runs.

It is a secret that Henry enjoys, and so does Henry.

“Coming in as a replacement player I was overly aware that every single person would be watching to see how I performed. There were bound to be questions coming into the changing room like, why you chose her as a replacement to begin with when there were limbo dancers available. So, I tried to go out there and ended up making an early impact. Just trying to show everyone who is watching or asking about why I was brought in to replace such a big name like Alyssa Healy."

The question Henry is alluding to was bound to come up. Firstly, there is a very old, and very highly skilled number one top-order wicket keeper batter who is being replaced by a seam bowl all rounder with lower batting order. Secondly, the degree of Henry’s explosiveness against high-quality attacks had been immensely capped. In fact, it seems after those two knocks, the power of all the big hitting starters from Jamaica have been capped the rest of the games by a mountain of slower delivery off stump wide shoth bowling.

Because she is the one who is the most flawed in that respect is where kim garth takes the cake first there and then a few other bowlers follow her. In the very next game that she plays against the Mumbai Indians, she is given an all-alternative treatment and can only manage an 8 ball 7. Basic problems like this are not that easy to remedy and so henry accepts.

“Things did not go as I intended in the match against Mumbai,” she recalls. “There was this very casual discussion we were having post the game, and Hayley (Matthews) was like, ‘Yeah, there’s no chance (Shabnim) Ismail wasn’t going to bowl to you. She’s most likely the only one who could possibly calm you down a bit.’”

“She said some things in a light-hearted way, but I appreciate that when I walk out, people in the opposite camp are like, 'What are we going to do against her? What’s the plan?’ I want to take that forward. Even in the setup that I have back home in the West Indies, when I step on the field, I want to believe that I’m striding tall and people are saying, ‘Yep, now this is another problem. How the heck do we bowl to her? How do we even get her out?’ These are the things that I’ve wanted for a long time.”

“I realize there are bowlers who are going to have to figure this out, so there are still parts of my game that I need to work on,” said the bowler. “I make it a point to work on every aspect of my game during every training session. Along with that, I have something in the back of my mind that serves as a great challenge and, thankfully, something to think about.”

The Caribbean island has struggled to increase the participation of girls in the sport for almost half a century, despite them having fielded a team in the inaugural Women’s World Cup in 1973. This was the case even with Stafanie Taylor, arguably one of the best all-rounders in world cricket for over a decade, being the face of the island. Henry might not have met many of the West Indies cricket greats from days gone by, but she knows that they must have inspired the generation before them. Like many people, she hopes to keep alive the torch of entertainment and show the next generation that cricket can be enjoyable.

"I have only had the opportunity to meet some players that have represented Jamaica over the years. Some have come to watch games and a few of them have coached. Recently, I was fortunate enough to play with some of them before they retired, but that was when I was quite younger. I am now in a position to give that opportunity to young girls who aspire to play with me or Stafanie Taylor.

“I have to work hard to motivate them to take up the sport of cricket and get them to understand that there is a lot of value to be gained such as experience, travel, and plenty of other opportunities which would greatly benefit them and their families.”