Chandigarh, Jan. 14 -- On a warm Sunday evening at the DY Patil Stadium, it was Delhi Capitals' medium-pacer Nandani Sharma - playing only her second WPL match - who ignited the crowd with a sensational hat-trick. The match didn't go DC's way as GG sneaked in a four-run win, but Nandani ensured her name echoed across the league. After conceding 16 runs in her first over, the 24-year-old from Chandigarh stormed back to claim a five-wicket haul (5/33). Bowling the final over, she dismissed Renuka Thakur, Rajeshwari Gayakwad, Kanika Ahuja and her state captain Kashvee Gautam, following her earlier crucial breakthrough with the wicket of Sophie Devine - she smashed 95 off 42 balls. "I just wanted to hit my target," Nandani said. "Shafali and Jemi (skipper Jemimah Rodrigues) kept talking to me. After my first over, I realised they were reading my stock delivery well, so I had to use my variations. Thankfully it worked." She became only the fourth bowler in WPL to bag a hat-trick, emulating Issy Wong, Deepti Sharma and Grace Harris. But where had Nandani been all these years? Three WPL seasons had passed without her finding a team. Last year, she got close, turning up as a net bowler for RCB. In 2023, she even attended the GG trials alongwith Kashvee, hoping to break through. She didn't. "Since a long time, Nandani was known as a useful swing bowler with good pace, quite like Shikha Pandey," said senior coach Khyati Gulani. "But she needed that one break. When she didn't get picked, she started rebuilding everything. skills, fitness and mindset." Her grind through 2024 paid off a year later. Nandani was picked for the NCA U23 emerging camp and later for the BCCI Centre of Excellence camp. Though she narrowly missed out on selection for India A touring Australia ahead of the ODI World Cup last year, WPL scouts had noticed her. Nandani's journey began in 2012 when Deepinder Chabra, owner of Leaders in Cricket Club, spotted her playing tennis-ball cricket with boys in Chandigarh's Bapu Dham Colony. "She had strong arms," Chabra recalled. "We enrolled her and her brother for coaching at the academy. By 13-14, she was in the Punjab senior team and then at NCA U19 camp." Her path, however, wasn't linear. In 2019, when the UT Cricket Association received BCCI affiliation, Nandani shifted from Punjab to Chandigarh. There she played under the shadow of bigger names - first Amanjot Kaur and later Kashvee. Only when Amanjot moved to PCA and Kashvee was injured could Nandani step into the spotlight. By 2025, she had even captained the Chandigarh senior women's T20 side. Eventually, she found a buyer in WPL, Delhi Capitals securing her for Rs.20 lakh....