Editorial: Women's cricket's 1983 moment

The Indian women’s cricket team deserves every bit of praise for winning the World Cup in Navi Mumbai on Sunday (Nov. 2). The manner in which the team overcame a poor start to finish as popular champions is an inspiration to Indians across every age, class and gender divide. That the players have given the country something to unite over at this fractious time is the best part.

Alluring parallels are being drawn between this victory and the momentous feat pulled off by the Indian men’s team in the 1983 World Cup. There is excitement that this will give to women’s cricket the same kind of boost that the men’s game received in the 1980s. After that memorable triumph at Lord’s, Indian cricket eventually rose to the top of the game with the Kapil Dev generation handing the baton to the Sourav Ganguly decade, which then paved the way to the Dhoni-Kohli cohort. Thanks to vaulting growth in television viewership, corporate sponsorship and media rights income, India today enjoys pre-eminence in the game.

Could the same thing happen to women’s cricket now? The auguries are good, but we’d be getting ahead of ourselves if we imagine that it will happen like night follows day. The current women’s team is blessed with fine leadership, exciting talent and exemplary team spirit, and so is favoured to do well in the immediate future. But to achieve lasting impact, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) needs to seize this opportunity to expand and deepen the popularity of women’s cricket.

To start with, it would be useful for the board to remember that a lot more than a fortuitous victory and tons of corporate cash went into making Indian men’s cricket what it is today. India’s cricket supremacy today was built upon a foundation of local leagues, first-class cricket, inter-zonal and university tournaments, all contributing to a pool of talent from which the likes of Tendulkar, Dravid, Kohli, and Dhoni emerged. Women’s cricket does not have a broad base, and so it is for the BCCI to now take up the foundational work that it has neglected ever since the Women’s Cricket Association of India merged into it in 2006.

Having grown fat on sponsorship monies, BCCI is building women’s cricket on the IPL model. The Women’s Premier League, launched in 2022, has just five teams closely aligned with city-based IPL teams. The tournament has achieved a modicum of popularity and reached sizeable new audiences on the strength of jazzy coverage by streaming channels. However, talent is mainly fostered by private academies, which means that access to the game is restricted to those who can pay for coaching. This is not sufficient for the growth of the women’s game.

Another criticism is the lack of sufficient competitive match exposure for players. Due to the lack of a robust structure, even senior women cricketers might get to play only 20 domestic games a season. The overall number of matches at various age groups (U-16, U-19) lags significantly, limiting talent development.

BCCI could also do a lot more on infrastructure for women cricketers. Inadequate facilities, including abysmal toilets and changing rooms, are universal at academies and grounds. While the top players enjoy pay parity with men for international games, match fees remain a pittance for domestic tournaments.