Bhavi Devchand

Professional cricketer of Indian origin and born in Zimbabwe, overcoming cultural challenges to live her dream

Born in Zimbabwe into a family of Indian origin, Devchand has encountered a range of cultural experiences just to be able to play the game.

Through the opportunity to play at a professional level, she has gained an insight into the difficulties of constantly pushing to achieve high performance and what it takes to create a successful, happy life, on and off the field.

Below is Bhavi describing her journey so far:

I've spent most of my cricket career in Perth, representing WA and the Perth Scorchers, before moving to Melbourne where I am now part of the Victorian squad, Melbourne Stars and the mighty Ringwood Rams. I'm also a wannabe musician, spend a lot of time searching for lost golf balls & certainly nerd out on all things performance.

I've spent the vast majority of my career in and out of teams, always told I had talent, but could never quite produce results consistently. This lead to a constant search, always looking for the next edge that will get me ahead or even just catch me up. I fell deep into the world of high performance as we know it, chasing this perfection I thought was required. If I could just get fitter, hit more areas, bowl more, focus more, be a better fielder, then everything will be ok and I'll achieve all the things.

As I tried harder, things seemed to get worse &eventually I lost my professional contract in May 2019. It seemed like the end of the world, I'd been going to the WACA for preseason since I was 13 &it had essentially become my life. I definitely had my fair share of sulking & complaining, however losing my contract opened up the opportunity to have a year in the wilderness. No programs, no schedule, no goals I must achieve to solve the worlds problems, just a love of the game and opportunities to pursue that in some new environments.

I started to rediscover that feeling I had when I was a little girl. Grateful to play, curious about getting better & excited for the challenge. What if everything I had so desperately been searching for was already inside of me?

I also started coaching more, and through this also realised I wasn't the only one with this need to do more to be more. In fact, the most common issues in performance didn't have much to do with your head falling over or not having a strong front arm, they originated in fear. Fear of other peoples opinions, of the unknown, of not being enough.

Irrelevant of who you are or what you've achieved, we're all searching for the same things - connection, unconditional love &purpose. The problem seems to arise when we search outside of us for these things. We rely on the world around us to tell us stories about what success should look like. Social media and advertising highlight perfectionism, making it very difficult to embrace who we are.

I absolutely love to connect with those that are in the arena, battling the highs and lows that come with pursuing potential. How do they manage rugged and high pressure environments? How can we have a red hot crack at our goals without getting attached to outcomes? And most importantly, how do we create environments that help foster this approach?

Be kind, be yourself and do your best.

I look forward to living this values with some exceptional communities in our wonderful country

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