Every time Niki Prasad walks into the M Chinnaswamy stadium, her eyes drift to a wall she’s been seeing for years. It carries Rahul Dravid’s name on it, his runs and his legacy, and it subtly inspired Prasad’s cricketing ambition. Growing up in Bengaluru, Prasad would stop in her tracks right at the entrance, look up to admire those numbers and turn to her mother every time: ‘one day, I want my name up there too!’
Years later, that influence still shows. Even in the number she wears on her back. Prasad chose 19 as a tribute to the man whose career not just shaped her cricketing aspirations but also the way she wants to live the game. “The way he carries himself, I felt I really want to be that kind of a person, you know? One who’s really calm, focussed, and just very down to earth,” she tells Cricbuzz.
That resolve has carried her a long way in her nascent career already – from an introverted teenager who faced early rejection to becoming India’s Under-19 World Cup-winning captain, and then into a second season with the Delhi Capitals.
Ahead of the mega-auction, when DC called late last November with the retention offer – a bump of INR 50 lakh from her base-price contract in 2025 – there were no grand celebrations at home. Just gratitude and a quick return to her ongoing preparations for the season. Even at 20, Prasad understands that this show of faith from a highly successful franchise meant responsibility.
“It made me feel I’ve got another opportunity to really put up a good show. To show everyone what I can do.”
This mindset has been shaped through processing setbacks early in life. Missing out on the selection for the inaugural U19 World Cup in 2023 and the first-ever WPL auctions, despite a good track record in age-group cricket, forced inward reflection. “As athletes, I feel, there’s always room for improvement. That one chapter made me realise that I need to not just work hard but change quite a lot of things about my game and my mindset.”
Instead of dwelling on the disappointment, Prasad went back to the drawing board. Reinvention involved long hours of range-hitting, entire sessions dedicated to perfecting a single shot, amping up fitness routines that now focussed on enhancing strength, endurance and agility, a stricter diet, lesser screen-time, more books and better lifestyle choices. “I learned not just about my cricket, but also who I am as a person and the lifestyle I want to live. There were a lot of changes, and a lot of growth post that.”
An introvert by nature, Prasad learnt quite early that her stillness helped her stay in control and have better composure in pressure situations. Over time though, she learned to balance that strength with communication especially when handed the leadership role. This blend of qualities was what made DC invest early.
Prasad was still in Malaysia for the World Cup from where she followed the 2025 WPL auction through video calls with friends because the official streaming didn’t work overseas. Nervousness dissipated quickly as she saw DC raise the paddle for her in the accelerated rounds.
It may still be a work in progress, but this is just the beginning of Prasad’s story ©BCCI
At Delhi Capitals, Prasad found new layers to leadership. Watching Meg Lanning’s discipline first hand – punctuality, early morning runs, no-excuses training, long batting sessions till she felt satiated – all left an indelible mark. But it was the Australian’s quiet reassurance that stayed with Prasad.
“Before entering the field, she used to come to me and say, ‘you’re a really good fielder for us. You’re going to take good catches today’. That made me feel very confident, because I was a little nervous going in. And, she did this every game. That confidence she gave me as captain – every single game – it mattered a lot.”
On the field, inspiration came from everywhere. Watching Annabel Sutherland sprint long-on to long-on before bowling her four overs as a pacer redefined the meaning of fatigue. “I had never previously done deep-to-deep running. In the first game for DC, I genuinely started to feel a little tired. But seeing Annabel do it relentlessly, and still come in and bowl her full overs – that really hit hard. I mean, I was only just running! Every time I’d start to feel tired, I’d tell myself, ‘Niki, c’mon, run'”.
Similarly, seeing Jemimah Rodrigues cover the length and breadth of the ground and still celebrate every wicket and every catch with energy felt infectious. After that, Prasad says, “I never once thought, ‘why am I running?’ You just run!”
That’s exactly the set-up she once dreamed of being at: where she can learn from the best in the business, and challenge herself every day. Her goals at DC remained simple: bat for the team, field with intent and create impact. All the lessons she absorbed quietly started shaping her approach to the game. And, it was only a matter of time before those learnings were put to test.
When DC’s chase of 175 against Gujarat Giants hit an unsustainable run-rate, Prasad switched to an aggressor role, picking the gaps with surgical precision. The defining point came in the 17th over when she fearlessly took on a veteran death-overs specialist in Sophie Devine, dismantling her rhythm with a clinical sequence of four boundary hits that immediately swung the momentum in Delhi’s favor. Prasad put on display her game awareness, in targetting the shorter boundary on the off-side, and a range of shots – from the lofted one to the inside-out over covers to that deft touch beside the short-third fielder.
Her assault was the catalyst in Delhi’s late surge, and the confidence rubbed off on Sneh Rana too as they combined to bring a once-impossible equation down to just 9 runs off the final six. She fell agonisingly short when the team needed a boundary hit off the last delivery, but her ability to stare down international bowlers was the only reason a lost cause was dragged to the very final ball.
More importantly, her valiant 24-ball 47 in Vadodara was a peek into her growth and transformation. It may still be a work in progress, but this is just the beginning of Niki Prasad’s story. And her focus is clear: to keep evolving as a player, lead by example, and one day etch her own name on the walls that once inspired her.