Siliguri girl Richa Ghosh’s dream run continued in her debut test match at Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai as she scored her maiden test half-century for the Indian team against mighty Australia and scored 52.

Her batting has already drawn accolades from the cricket fraternity and Jayanta Bhowmik, the childhood coach of Wriddhiman Saha (another batter-keeper of the Indian team from Siliguri), is overwhelmed by her performance.

“This is a tremendous achievement. Representing the country in three formats of cricket itself is a rare quality of a cricketer. But scoring a half-century only on the first test, that too against a team like Australia, has proved the highest ability of a player,” said Bhowmik.

Significantly, the new entrant in the Indian women’s test team was included as a "batter" and not in her usual position of wicketkeeper.

When she went to bat on second down, her team’s score was 147 for the loss of three wickets. She and Jemimah Rodrigues in the fourth wicket partnership took the score to 260 for four. Richa, before getting out, made her innings by facing 104 balls with seven boundaries.

“She is an inspiration to many budding players here. We should not forget that Wriddhi and Richa went to the highest level of international cricket from a city, where there is hardly any infrastructure of cricket. If we can provide a basic cricket ground where players can practice throughout the year, I believe there will be more such success stories,” Bhowmik added.

Gopal Saha, who nurtured Richa’s talent at the BaghaJatin Athletics Club’s cricket coaching centre when she was only four years old, feels that concentrating on ground shots helped her score test runs.

“She entered the test team as a batter and realising it, she has transformed her usual hard-hitting into defensive mode. When she came here in November, I told her to concentrate on ground shots, which she has followed and results can be seen,” Saha said.

“She has established herself in all formats and now she should keep on concentrating on how to excel by developing her keeping and batting because playing in red ball is the ultimate goal for every cricketer that she has successfully achieved,” he added.

Manoj Verma, the cricket secretary of Siliguri Mahakuma Krira Parishad, the subdivisional sports body of Siliguri, said there were reasons to celebrate her success.

“We will celebrate once she returns to her hometown. She will be given a grand reception,” said Verma.