Anna Corbin has more reason than most to celebrate her selection in the CLEAR White Ferns to tour India next month.

Having sighted a possible opening for her right-arm off-spin, the 20-year-old set a goal for herself from March last year, to try and win selection for India.

That's a normal sort of goal for any player, but Corbin needed to improve her fielding ability to be able to present herself as a complete player.

But where she was different from others was in her need to lose some weight, 35-38kgs of it.

Corbin spoke with White Ferns coach Mike Shrimpton last year about what she needed to do to get a spot in the side and he told her that she needed to have all three components to her play, batting, bowling and fielding, and she didn't have fielding at that stage.

Selection convener Lesley Murdoch said Corbin's bowling had always been up to standard and she could hit well.

"She bowls so well, she can open the bowling, do the job in the middle overs or bowl at the death.

"She has really picked up her ability and has trained really hard. She deserves all the accolades she gets for her work and we are looking to nurse her into the international scene," she said.

Corbin, who has played cricket since she was 10, and has done all the things young players with promise have to do, including playing in boys' sides.

But by age 13 she was playing in the senior women's grade in Wellington for her Hutt Districts side, a side she now captains in a competition that is much lower in standard than when she started.

Orginally a medium-pacer, she remembers a training session at the Basin Reserve where the men's team were practising as well. She had a discussion with men's coach Vaughn Johnson and he suggested she try off-spinning.

"I remember afterwards he yelled out to our coach that he thought he had just changed one of her medium-pacers into an off-spinner.

"I always did have a natural wrist action," she said.

Shrimpton had been especially helpful in the last 10 months with developing her bowling while in earlier years the Wellington trio of Julie Harris, Maia Lewis and Penny Kinsella, all of them former internationals, had been a big help.

The realisation that she needed to lose some weight resulted in Corbin changing her diet and doing more exercise.

"I was brought up in a big family and when I went flatting cooking in that fashion was all I knew so I had to change my cooking habits.

"I've also done lots of walking and have trained non-stop. Once I got into a pattern of training, the weight just fell off," she said.

"I'm glad it has all worked out. I find I don't get tired as easily as I used to and I have had no injuries. Injuries have not been a problem, but if I had not lost weight, they might have held me back," she said.

Making the lifestyle change and applying the benefits of a better understanding of good nutrition had been easy, she said, because the motivation was easy.

"I have been so motivated. It is no problem to get up in the mornings and go to the gym.

"I want to play and I want to get the selectors looking at me," she said.

It hasn't always been easy because her Wellington side has not been the force of past years.

But Corbin measured her progress by the little successes she could claim, like bowling well to Emily Drumm and Rebecca Rolls and keeping the runs down against them.

"To bowl well to them does make you feel great, and at one stage Maia [Lewis] called me a bowling machine. Comments like that blow you away," she said.

A background in indoor cricket has helped her, and led to a trip to the indoor cricket World Cup when it was held in South Africa.

Originally, Corbin set her sights on making the White Ferns for the World Cup in South Africa in 2005, but when retirements occurred in the side, she saw a chance and has worked towards the Indian tour.

"I'm really looking forward to it," she said.

And Corbin will have the chance to spread the cricket word among the young people of Wellington as she has been appointed a State Insurance cricket ambassador for Wellington cricket.

The game in Wellington for women is going through a rebuilding phase. The side has a new coach in Mark Coles while Jane Hunter-Siu has returned to the side. However, it will be a young team that is fielded in the State League this year.

© CricInfo