Thirty years ago, Jacintha Kalyan moved to Bengaluru from Harobele village. She is currently in charge of pitch preparation for the Women’s Premier League first leg in Bengaluru.
Unbelievably, Jacintha Kalyan, who was 80 kilometers away from Bengaluru, thought she would become the first female curator in the nation when she moved to Harobele, a village, to work as a receptionist at the Karnataka State Cricket Association (KSCA) office at the Chinnaswamy Stadium. In her more than three decades with the KSCA, she has taken on a variety of positions, including those of receptionist, administrative assistant, accountant, and pitch preparation for the next Women’s Premier League season, which starts this Friday.
Beyond the weekend stage performances in Harobele, Jacintha’s career has witnessed additional twists and turns.
When the daughter of a paddy farmer was given the responsibility of managing the ground crew at M Chinnaswamy Stadium in 2014, she was particularly attentive to the preparation and upkeep of the outfield and pitch. She gained experience on the job and then confided in former Test player and KSCA secretary Brijesh Patel about her desire to become a curator.
“Amid college students, I felt like a LKG student.” I was ignorant. But I wanted to know more. Following Brijesh sir’s input, curators PS Vishwanath sir and K Sriram sir took me under their wing and began imparting their wisdom. And I took the BCCI exam in 2018,” 49-year-old Jacintha said to The news sources.
On the other hand, Jacintha noted that handling soil on a cricket pitch and in a field are completely different.
While working as a curator and farming both require science, I’ve discovered that they are very different. If you follow the correct procedures, farming will take care of itself. However, this curator is a little demanding, but one who does it with complete love—kashtam na ishta pattu panrathu. You cannot say, “Let’s go inside,” if you feel that the temperature is too high. It need your care because it will respond differently in the summer and the winter. Therefore, you ought to look after the pitch well. It changes with every season, so you have to be there for her (pitch) and treat her like a newborn. She won’t listen to us unless you do that, Jacintha stated.
Jacintha has been supporting Sriram with pitch preparations at the KSCA since 2018. However, Jacintha’s breakout season came in 2023–24 domestically, when she was appointed as an impartial curator for the Ranji Trophy. She had been in charge of the pitch setups in Pondicherry, Goa, and Kerala during the current Ranji Trophy round when she received the call to oversee the same at the WPL.
