Sachin’s consistency, Dhoni’s calmness and Virat’s transformation: Harini’s life lessons

Harini PN Rana, has been selected as one of 40 girls to be chosen from a list of 45 countries for 100% Cricket Future Leaders Program, which enables girls to take up leadership roles in cricket.

“When I began in 2006, did I think I will reach here...definitely not,” smiles Harini PN Rana, a sports media and management professional who has been shattering the glass ceiling, and how! Recently, she has been selected as one of 40 girls to be chosen from a list of 45 countries for 100% Cricket Future Leaders Program, which enables girls to take up leadership roles in cricket.

Harini PN Rana, a Mumbai-based sports media and management professional, has been selected for Cricket Future Leaders Program.

Rana’s story has been one of perseverance, belief, consistency and hard work; right from the beginning. She started working as a reporter, and became India’s second female sports editor of a TV news channel, while still under the age of 30. And in her illustrious career, she has reported from 14 countries, witnessed some of the biggest sporting moments live, and interacted with top athletes across the world.

Harini says she learned how to be neutral through the highs and lows, from former Indian cricket team captain MS Dhoni.

“In my life, one thing lead to another and that makes be believe more strongly in the power of my dreams and hard work,” she says, recalling the very start of her professional journey in 2000s. “In my school days, in 1999, my spiritual mentor sent me to watch the Cricket World Cup in England, which exposed me to the sport industry,” she recalls, adding how sports was never looked at as a “parameter of success” and how her journey was laden with “rejection, failures, self-doubt, heart breaks, challenges, and gender bias”.

Feeling grateful to leaders, who spotted her merit, she shares how she has covered marquee sport moments such as World Cup, Olympics, Commonwealth Games and more. “My dual experience of media and management played a key role in my selection to represent India at the ICC programme. I’ve been doubted with my understanding of the game, and its boardroom functioning. I’ve also experienced the highs of breaking a big story, interviewing legends, reporting on stories that have caused a shift in power corridors of the sport ecosystem. But over the years, I realised, we must let our work do the talking,” says Rana, who is Mumbai-based, and had also covered the 26/11 terror strike for over 40 hours non-stop.

And her interactions with some of the top sportspersons has come with some beautiful life learnings. Rana says she has learned “consistency and hard work from Sachin Tendulkar”, and how to be “neutral through the highs and lows from MS Dhoni”. She adds: “The best part of covering sport is having conversations with athletes, administrators beyond the camera. I learnt to never giving up on my dreams from Sania Mirza, physical and mental transformation from Virat Kohli, moving a team to chase common goal like Rohit Sharma, mental toughness from Leander Paes and so many more... In fact, my life’s first peach iced tea was with Sachin at his restaurant, where I went to interview his business partner but ended up interviewing Sachin himself!”

Taking her recent selection as a “huge honour and responsibility”, Rana says, “It’s not often that you get an opportunity to represent your country at an international arena, and make it to a list where cricket’s governing body looks at the selected members as talent that has the potential to be future leaders in world cricket. As an Indian, I feel proud that I’ve an opportunity to represent our great nation along with 28 other countries. I’m a girl who had nothing to lose and looked at every constraint as a catalyst to chase my dreams more aggressively. And I always strongly believed in letting my work do the talking,” she concludes.

Author tweets @Nainaarora8

Follow more stories on Facebook and Twitter