Indian women send a strong message to the organizers with a World Cup Win
Women's Cricket
It's been exactly one week since that triumphant evening at the DY Patil Stadium, Navi Mumbai where the Indian women went on to create history by winning their first Women World Cup against a resilient South Africa. A win that is being earmarked as something similar to the 1983 World Cup win for the men. Although, in my eyes this win is in many ways different to that by Kapil Dev's men. Precisely, because the Women's cricket in India stood way ahead of where the men were in 1983 and hence they deserve a lot more respect, even if this tournament had not ended up in their favor.
Elaborating on the above, let's go back to the last time India hosted a Women's World Cup in 2013. The schedule for the biggest event in cricket's history included only five venues in two cities Mumbai and Cuttack for a 25-game event. Compare it to the Men's 2011 World Cup hosted jointly by India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. A total of 13 cities, eight alone in India hosted this 49-game tournament in all the major cricketing grounds of these countries (some of which were specifically built/re-modelled for this event). The Women's World Cup two years later, did not see Mumbai's Wankhede stadium host a single match with all the Wankhede matches shifted to Brabourne stadium at the insistence of Mumbai Cricket Association as they wanted to host a Ranji trophy final there.
Now, one could argue that the Women's game in India was extremely small in numbers compared to the Men's game in terms of popularity twelve years ago. Let's check the other host countries: England hosted the final of the Women's World Cup at Lord's cricket stadium in 1996 and 2017, Australia's MCG in 1988, South Africa's Supersport Park in 2005 and New Zealand's Hagley Oval in 2022. Even India did it better in 1996 with Kolkata's Eden Gardens being the host of the final in 1996.
India did get it right when they hosted the 2016 Women's T20 World Cup hosted immediately a few months after the Men's T20 World Cup was also hosted in the same country.
Coming back to the World Cup this year, India stood in the same situation as 2013 as they were hosting the event two years after the Men's World Cup was hosted in the same country. Although, things this time were very different as compared to 12 years ago. Current captain Harmanpreet Kaur had already put Indian Women's cricket team on the map with a herculean 171* against the mighty Australians in the semifinal showdown of the 2017 World Cup. Yes, Indian Women had not won a single ICC trophy until now but they had made the finals of 2017 World Cup and the Commonwealth T20 games 2022 in England (narrowly missing out on both occasions) as well as 2020 T20 World Cup in Australia. They had also made the semi-finals of the 2018 and 2023 T20 World Cup semi-finals. Harmanpreet, Smriti Mandhana, Deepti Sharma, Shaifali Verma, Jemimah Rodrigues had become household names.
Australia and India Women competing in the 2020 T20 World Cup
One big reason behind this surge of popularity is considered to be the Women's Premier League started in 2023. The BCCI, considered as the pioneer of the World Cricket started the Men's IPL in 2008 with eight teams which has now expanded to 10, a decision taken to nurture more local male cricketers in this hugely talented country. The women of same country had to wait until 2023 when the tournament was established with 5 teams. Mind you, the Women's Big Bash league hosted by Australia started in 2014-15, three years after the inaugural Men's Big Bash league in 2011-12 starting with exactly same 8 teams and the same number of matches every year. Not only that, the Women's Big Bash League was hosting 59 matches much higher than men's 44 match season four seasons before Men's BBL adopted the same.
England started the Women's Super League tournament featuring 6 teams and ran it from 2016-2019. It was then replaced by the Hundred in 2021 which runs parallel to the Men's format played in the same format and equal number of teams. This means that both Cricket Australia and English cricket board had comfortably set up a franchise tournament for Women long before BCCI even though they had invented and redefined the same for Men's cricket in 2008.
None of it is the fault of our Women cricketers and the 2025 World Cup was the best way to reinvent the wheel a little bit. Due to the India-Pakistan stand-off, India alone could not be the only host country for this event as Pakistan were supposed to play their matches at a neutral venue. The organizers, ICC and BCCI chose Sri Lanka over Bangladesh as the second host country in peak rainfall season. Result: eight of the eleven games hosted by Colombo were affected by rain with six of them yielding no results. The biggest cricketing event which comes once in every four years had 11 out of 32-games affected by rain, seven of them being no results. Thanks to additional time allotted for knockouts, we were able to get a 50-over final otherwise we would have lost a few overs last Sunday too. A fair point made by New Zealand's legendary Sophie Devine, playing in her last 50-over tournament made a good point about a simple Google search showing it was supposed to rain during this time in Sri Lanka. We can only pray that basic common sense can prevail in the future to make these long awaited tournaments a better spectacle for both the players and it's viewers.
The astonishment isn't over yet. Another comparison with the 2023 Men's World Cup hosted entirely by India had ten venues for the 48-game event: Narendra Modi Stadium Ahmedabad (host of the final), Rajiv Gandhi Int. Stadium Hyderabad, HPCA Stadium Dharamshala, Arun Jaitley Stadium Delhi (previously known as Feroz Shah Kotla Stadium), MA Chidambaram Stadium Chennai, Ekana Cricket Stadium Lucknow, MCA Stadium Pune, M. Chinnaswamy Stadium Bengaluru, Wankhede Stadium Mumbai, Eden Gardens Kolkata.
This Women's World Cup initially did not have any of the above venues except for M. Chinnaswamy Stadium Bengaluru. It was only once "The M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru has been declared 'unsuitable and unsafe' for large-scale events by the Justice John Michael Cunha Commission" after the tragic stampede on June 4 during Royal Challengers Bengaluru's maiden IPL trophy celebration", that BCCI had to move the matches in DY Patil stadium Navi Mumbai including the semi-finals and finals played by India. The four Indian host cities along with Colombo for this month long tournament included Guwahati, Indore, Vishakhapatnam and Navi Mumbai.
Don't our girls deserve to play their matches at Wankhede, Eden Gardens or MA Chidambaram Stadium? Shouldn't Narendra Modi Stadium be hosting the final for Women's cricket, the same way it did in 2023 or will be doing the same for men in 2026 T20 World Cup? While England and Australian cricket boards make sure the Women's cricket finals are hosted at the iconic stadiums of Lord's and MCG, BCCI has again not come forward to eliminate this silent discrimination observed for years between both genders of sport.
Few other examples such as the difference in rewards announced by BCCI for Men after winning the T20 World Cup in 2024 (121 crores) and Champions Trophy in 2025 (58 crores) while Women's cricket team were rewarded with 51 crores. Mind you the Women won the 50-over World Cup (the highest prize in cricketing fraternity), at home. There was no victory parade organized for our Women champions like the Indian Men in 2011 and 2024 paraded the streets of Mumbai.
Recalling the original argument about why this win in 2025 is different than 1983 is because the Men at that time were such underdogs not even our own country gave them a chance. That iconic victory sowed the seeds, the result of which is now visible with Indian Men dominating the game especially in white ball. But in my opinion, the spark in Women's cricket was already ignited by legends like Mithali Raj, Anjum Chopra, Jhulan Goswami and many others. This victory was just a missing piece of the puzzle which will carry the momentum forward and bring many such talented women not only in cricket but other sports as well.
Led by captain Harmanpreet Kaur and the mentorship of coach Amol Muzumdar, this victory on Nov 2nd 2025 three days after defeating the giants of women's cricket Australia with a record run-chase is not only a strong message to the organizers but also source of immense joy to the whole country.
P.S: A special mention to Laura Wolvaardt's South Africa. They were excellent throughout the tournament missing out barely on the final day. This team has now made the finals of the last three ICC tournaments and are just few steps short of creating history. Wishing them best of luck for future games!!
References : ESPNCricinfo, Economic Times
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