Player Profile
Fast bowler Mahika Gaur had quite the 2023, following a senior regional debut for Thunder with a sextet of international appearances for the England team.
Gaur’s tale is a pretty incredible one.
To cut a long story short, she is only 17-years-old, has played international cricket for two countries, has impressed for her region and is still at school.
Born in Reading, left-armer Gaur moved to Dubai at the age of eight. Already hooked on cricket following a family holiday to India included taking in an IPL game, Gaur was enrolled at the ICC Global Academy.
She progressed through the United Arab Emirates age-group system and made her senior international debut for them in January 2019 - the first of 19 T20I appearances for that nation.
Her debut for the UAE actually came 18 months before the start of regional cricket and Thunder’s inception in summer 2020.
In October 2021, Lancashire sent a delegation to the Dubai Expo event as part of their sponsorship with Fly Emirates, with former wicketkeepers Warren Hegg and Farokh Engineer and current club captain Keaton Jennings all there.
They put on a coaching masterclass session at the event, and Gaur attended and immediately caught the eye with her languid action. "Silky" is a description Hegg has since used.
Enquiries were immediately made as to whether she was eligible to play in England, which she was through birth. A month later, she was on a plane to the North West, spending a fortnight or so at Emirates Old Trafford and also visiting Sedbergh School in Cumbria, where she chose to continue her A-Level education.
New ball exponent Gaur then progressed through Thunder’s Academy and made her senior regional debut in April 2023, claiming an impressive 3-39 from 10 overs in a Rachael Heyhoe Flint Trophy defeat to Western Storm at Taunton.
In all, she claimed 11 wickets in 15 appearances across 50-over and T20 cricket for Thunder in 2023, that debut performance being her best return.
Gaur had done enough to catch the eye of the England selectors, and she debuted for her birth country in a T20I victory against Sri Lanka at Hove in late August.
She later claimed 3-26 from 6.2 overs in an ODI win over the same opponents and played a couple more T20s against India at the iconic Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai in December.
Gaur also made her Hundred debut for the Manchester Originals in 2023, claiming four wickets for them.
Gaur, 6ft 3inches, is known as ‘Two-metre Mahika’ by her Thunder team-mates, who have also given her another nickname - ‘Magic Meeks’. That is because, off the field, Gaur has often entertained her fellow players with a magic trick or two.
Having started 2023 as a promising fast bowler hoping to break through, Gaur now starts 2024 as someone regarded as one of England’s key assets and a bowler who could well be terrorising batters across the world for the next 15-20 years.