Mangaluru: Call it India’s portion of Australia’s prosperity. Urmila Rosario, the Australian cricket team’s manager, has strong ties to Mangaluru and India, therefore the seaside city will have some cause for celebration regarding the 2023 Cricket World Cup results.
The 34-year-old Urmila is the daughter of Kinnigoli, near Mangaluru, natives Ivy and Valentine Rosario. Her parents worked in Doha, Qatar, at the time of her birth. Seven years ago, her parents moved back to Sakaleshpur, India, where they purchased a coffee estate. Urmila, a Carnegie Mellon University BBA alumna, relocated to Australia in the meantime.
By then, a sportsperson from her childhood, Urmila had worked with the Qatar Tennis Federation for three years. In Australia, she first worked with the Adelaide cricket team for about three years. Later, she was moved to the Australian women’s cricket team as team manager. During the last Football World Cup, she took leave from cricket and managed a football stadium in Qatar for four months.On her return to Australia from Qatar in September this year, she was asked to take care of the Australian men’s cricket team for the World Cup.
Her father, Valentine, stated that she traveled with the men’s squad exclusively for the World Cup assignment and that she will soon return to the women’s cricket team, joining them on their December trip of India. It’s intriguing to follow Urmila’s path into the sports industry. She never thought she would be so intimately linked with cricket, says Valentine with a grin, adding that as a student, she concentrated on basketball, tennis, rowing, and bungee jumping.
Regarding Urmila’s work, Ivy explained that she oversees all aspects, such as lodging and transportation. She continues, “She is in charge of everything and has a lot of people reporting to her.”
Valentine thinks it’s quite weird that, four years ago, despite being non-Australian and holding an Indian passport at the time, Cricket Australia selected her for the national women’s cricket squad.
Valentine claims that she may have been chosen for her World Cup assignment due to her expertise of India’s languages and her ability to lead the women’s squad. She speaks Konkani, Kannada, and Hindi.
Her parents attended Australia’s matches against Pakistan and Bangladesh in Bengaluru and Pune, respectively. Ivy remarked, “We were hoping to watch the finals, but we were unable to leave the estate.” In March of this year, Urmila went to see her parents and worked at the estate with her father.
