There was a time when Shreyas V. Movva, MEng 19, doubted whether he had a future in top-class cricket. The batsman and wicket-keeper’s confidence was badly shaken after a difficult tournament match in his home state of Karnataka, India. Frustrated, he broke down in front of a teammate.

“There were a lot of hopes on me from the coach and the team’s selectors,” recalls the software engineering master’s graduate. “And I failed to perform.”
Redemption came soon enough when Movva scored 150 runs in the next match.

A century in cricket — when a batsman scores 100 or more runs — is a remarkable feat. That Movva did so with a legend of the game in the stands was the cherry on top.

“My father was a fast bowler and he used to tell me that Gundappa Viswanath was the finest batsman he had ever seen. He was there to watch his kid play — and I was smashing boundaries against him. Viswanath came up to me after the match and congratulated me.”

Like many competitive athletes, Movva prefers not to play prognosticator. But he feels good about Canada’s chances to qualify for the event, where they could face titans of the sport like India, England and Australia at hallowed grounds like Adelaide Oval and, with a capacity of 100,000 fans, Melbourne Cricket Ground.
“It’s looking very bright to me,” says Movva from a hotel room in Toronto, where Canada’s T20 squad practices. “We’re having a strong training session and we’re coming off a very good effort at the regional qualifiers in Antigua, where we were actually missing some players. We’ll have our full roster in Oman.”
It’s rare for cricketers from Quebec to qualify for Canada’s national squad. In fact, Movva is the first player from the province to make the cut in 12 years.
“Shreyas is one of the best in the country,” affirms Subrata Mandal of the Quebec Cricket Federation. “He reads the game well and has a real captaincy’s sense. That’s why he made the team.”