CHENNAI: "After the match, when our phones were returned, there were lots of messages. I think the first message that I read was from our CEO... then only I realised, hang on 'I have a world record'..." In the incessant data-driven world of international sport, there are real-time updates whenever athletes break world records. But Anuradha Doddaballapur's four wickets in as many balls against Austria in the fourth T20I on August 14 didn't immediately register. She had become the first woman to achieve it (Rashid Khan and Lasith Malinga have done it in men's cricket).

After reading the message from the CEO as well as the constant notifications from various apps on her phone, her only regret was her failure to not celebrate the moment with a bit more josh. "If you look at the fourth ball, neither me nor my teammates knew there was a record to be broken. So after I picked up the wicket, it (the celebration) was a bit bland. If I had known, I would have reacted (according to the situation)."

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If Anuradha was creating a world record in August 2019, the path she followed to that moment in Vienna was a deeply unconventional one. For starters, it began some 20 summers ago in Basavanagudi in South Bangalore. She rose through the ranks after playing age-group cricket, eventually representing Karnataka. But this was a time when women's cricket in the country was regarded as a dead-end, with players lacking opportunity. There was also a lack of money in the sport.

So she packed her bags to do further studies at Newcastle University (Medical Genetics) in the UK. But, crucially, she had packed her kit as well. While studying in England, she further honed her cricketing skills as a bowling all-rounder. She went on to play for a few sides including Northumberland County in the UK. She was named the captain in 2017.

After three years in the northeast, she moved to Germany, to pursue a Ph.D. in cardiovascular biology. With cricket clubs limited and few and far in between, she had her work cut out if she had to keep her passion going. She decided to pool in resources and create one women's cricket club in Frankfurt, her base in the country, some 5-6 years ago.

After those baby steps, her standing in the sport within Germany grew which saw her ultimately named captain in her debut match T20I match against Oman in February this year. All this while pursuing a day job as a postdoctoral research scientist at the Angiogenesis and Metabolism Laboratory, an independent research group at the Max Planck Institute for Heart and Lung Research, in Bad Nauheim, some 30 kms from Frankfurt.

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The Germany women's team are ranked 26th out of 59th in World T20 rankings. Sandwiched by China (25) and Japan (27), the team needs all the matches they can lay their hands on for experience as well as moving up the ladder. The 5-0 blanking of Austria (World No 53) will help but they need bigger scalps. That isn't lost on the 33-year-old but they cannot think of sprinting just yet, not when they don't even have a dedicated training centre yet.

"We don't really have a dedicated training venue, the place where we train keeps changing," she says. "Wherever there is a free location, we go... Munich, Hamburg, Frankfurt." It can be a bit challenging to do this every week but "spirit and the unity we have within the squad is everything. The atmosphere is rocking at all times."

You need that sort of synergy because the team meets only once a month for training. "We catch up on a weekend, once a month have two training sessions... we try to pack in roughly 6six-seven hours on a Saturday followed by another five-six hours on a Sunday." Because the sport doesn't automatically lend itself to outdoor training in Europe's harsh winters, "we shift to sports halls for a good four-five months."

An important assignment up next for Anuradha and her team, which includes the 15-year-old spinner Emma Bargna — "a great talent," according to her captain — is a regional European qualifier for the T20 World Cup. Do well there and they will all begin to dream the improbable dream.