Women’s ODI World Cup | How girls from small towns are rewriting India’s cricket narrative

On July 20, 2017, Harmanpreet Kaur played what was, arguably, the astir important innings by an Indian pistillate cricketer. Her audacious 171 runs disconnected 115 balls against heavyweights Australia successful the semi-final of the ICC Women’s ODI World Cup became the sound that made Indian audiences statesman to see “women’s cricket” arsenic what it genuinely is: cricket.

Almost 5,000 miles distant from Derby, England, wherever Kaur was dismantling the defending champions’ bowling attack, 15-year-old Uma Chetry recovered her purpose. In her section nine successful Assam’s Golaghat district, Chetry got goosebumps conscionable proceeding the score. Between juggling school, farming duties with her parents, and cricket practice, she would ticker the highlights connected repeat. She declared to her teammates, “One day, I privation to bat similar that. One day, I privation to play with Harmanpreet Kaur.” Seven years later, connected July 7, 2024, Chetry became the archetypal pistillate cricketer from the Northeast to marque her India debut. The bluish headdress was handed to her by skipper Kaur herself.

Like Chetry, Kranti Goud’s communicative excessively is astir earthy endowment bursting done successful cricket’s little celebrated geographies. Back successful 2017, successful Ghuwara colony adjacent Khajuraho successful Madhya Pradesh, 14-year-old Goud was starring her territory squad to the last of a U-19 tournament. Local manager Rajiv Bilthare was struck by her “speed that tin lone beryllium God’s gift”. That spark matured into an awesome spell, with six wickets successful conscionable her 4th planetary match, handing India a uncommon ‘away’ bid triumph against England this July.

Cricket was acold from an enactment for N. Shree Charani from Andhra Pradesh’s Kadapa district, champion known for its temples and karam dosa. According to her begetter Chandrasekhar Reddy, a inferior idiosyncratic astatine a thermal powerfulness plant, cricket being a squad sport, his daughter, bully astatine athletics, kho kho, volleyball, would not get “noticed”. Except, destiny had different plans for the teen who conscionable wanted to “play, play, play”.

At this year’s Women’s Premier League (WPL), Shree Charani, 21, took 4 wickets successful conscionable 2 games for the Delhi Capitals. That was capable for India manager Amol Muzumdar to hail her arsenic the “find of the tournament”. Within months, she was fast-tracked into planetary cricket. With 10 wickets successful India’s T20 bid triumph implicit England — wherever she was named Player of the Series — it volition beryllium harmless to accidental Shree Charani’s begetter had to devour his words, and happily so.

Chetry, Goud and Shree Charani are much than conscionable newcomers successful India colours; they transportation small-town dreams to the grandest signifier of them each — the ICC Women’s ODI World Cup, which kicks disconnected connected September 30. More than fractional of India’s 15-member squad volition beryllium making their World Cup debut. They are signposts of a larger taste shift: cricket breaking retired of its metropolitan mould adjacent further, families and communities recalibrating their ideas of what their daughters are susceptible of, and young women from India’s Tier 2 and 3 towns dreaming big.

Many firsts

• Indian women are eyeing their first-ever World Cup trophy (only the U19 girls person won twice, not the elder team).

• Australia are the defending champions and the astir palmy squad successful ODI World Cups — with a grounds 7 wins.

• Apart from Australia, lone England (4) and New Zealand (1) person won the World Cup.

• India (Guwahati, Indore, Vizag, Navi Mumbai) are the hosts, but Sri Lanka (Colombo) excessively is 1 of the venues arsenic Pakistan cannot vie connected Indian soil. (All Pakistan games volition beryllium played successful Colombo.)

• This year, for the archetypal time, determination volition beryllium an all-woman lucifer officials sheet (14 umpires and 4 lucifer referees).

Period of growth

No 1 understands this amended than erstwhile India skipper Jhulan Goswami, whose ain travel from Chakdah to Kolkata successful the precocious 90s — 2 hours each mode by bid conscionable to get to a crushed — is arsenic legendary arsenic her wickets tally. “We are a federation undergoing transformation, and contiguous you volition spot women successful arenas that were unseen and unheard of, accidental 10 years ago,” she says. “The colonisation is young, and each miss wants to bash thing worthwhile with her life. Cricket is conscionable different medium. The athletics has ever been popular, and invokes truthful overmuch pride. Now, finally, it has started giving fiscal information to the girls.”

Goswami and her long-time teammate and partner-in-record- breaking, Mithali Raj, person lived done the full-circle of the communicative of women’s cricket successful India. They started their careers earlier the women’s crippled came nether the ambit of the Board of Cricket Control successful India (BCCI), and the players were astir ever broke. “We were emptying our family’s pockets to play for India,” recalls Raj, the highest run-scorer (across formats) successful women’s planetary cricket. “We utilized to organise everything connected our own, circuit aft tour, purely due to the fact that of our passionateness for the game.”

When the Raj-led squad returned from South Africa arsenic World Cup runners-up successful 2005, it was successful anonymity, conscionable similar overmuch of their careers had been until then. Days later, each subordinate received a cheque for a paltry ₹9,000 from squad sponsor Sahara. In crisp contrast, erstwhile the Indian men’s squad returned arsenic runners-up successful 2003, they were handed plush apartments successful Sahara’s Amby Valley successful Pune, successful summation to cheques from aggregate sources.

The 2017 World Cup, wherever each matches were televised live, and India finished runners-up, marks the wide dividing enactment betwixt the ‘before’ and ‘after’ eras of Indian women’s cricket. The International Cricket Council’s integer and societal media platforms garnered a grounds 100 cardinal views, doubling the sum that the women’s crippled was severely successful request of. “Not erstwhile were we made to consciousness similar we mislaid the final,” Raj says, of the clip they returned from England.

Until then, she and Goswami had spent their lives bringing laurels to the nation, each successful obscurity. “I had ne'er been truthful engaged and successful truthful overmuch request ever successful my life,” says Goswami, of the countless interviews, workplace visits, events, shoots and nationalist appearances successful the months that followed. The adjacent fewer years, capped by different runners-up decorativeness successful the 2020 T20 World Cup, were marked by unprecedented growth.

Breaking generational patterns

But it was truly the WPL successful 2023 that changed the grammar of accidental for women’s cricket successful India. Institutionally, it has been the astir important change, particularly successful a strategy wherever home players inactive hold for ceremonial contracts. And for the archetypal time, the women successful bluish were being valued. Batter Smriti Mandhana’s ₹3.4 crore woody with Royal Challengers Bengaluru made headlines, but the ripple effect was felt deeper, arsenic adjacent uncapped home players began earning life-changing sums successful a azygous auction.

“After WPL, you tin yet say, yes, cricket tin beryllium a profession,” says Raj. “Earlier, families saw cricket arsenic a gamble, present they spot it arsenic a career.” In summation to WPL, astir each Indian states present person their ain T20 leagues for women, which means much crippled time, much chances to get noticed by endowment scouts, and of course, much money.

But salaries archer lone fractional the story. Beyond finances, the league has fixed these women thing little tangible but much almighty — confidence. They privation to beryllium seen, and heard. For the girls from smaller towns, the hurdles person ever been bigger — agelong commutes, less facilities, accrued societal scrutiny. But playing successful beforehand of packed crowds successful Tier 1 stadiums successful Bengaluru, Mumbai and Delhi means the existent procreation doesn’t shrink nether pressure, they flourish. Their attack to the crippled is fearless too, acold from the nervy, risk-averse attack of their predecessors. “The league has prepared this existent batch for planetary cricket,” says all-rounder Jemimah Rodrigues, portion of the ODI World Cup squad. “They are acceptable to springiness it their each and are not acrophobic to explicit themselves. It doesn’t substance if they fail, but the tone and vigor is thing other and that rubs disconnected connected the full team.”

This assurance isn’t conscionable a cricket story; it mirrors a larger displacement successful India. Of young women becoming engineers, pilots, constabulary officers, service personnel, entrepreneurs — their visibility itself becoming a signifier of power. For each the records, contracts, and World Cup dreams, the meaning of this displacement is possibly champion understood successful the quiescent rewards astatine home, wherever mothers play a proactive relation successful breaking generational patterns.

Mother knows best

In Golaghat, Uma Chetry’s parent knows what sacrifice means. Married young, her ain schooling was chopped short, and beingness became a rhythm of caring for and raising six children. Through it all, she stood firmly down her lone daughter’s seemingly improbable cricketing dream. Today, erstwhile Chetry returns location with a caller sari for her mother, she sheds a quiescent tear. Not conscionable retired of joy, but besides pridefulness that her daughter’s destiny won’t beryllium the aforesaid arsenic hers.

In Kadapa, Shree Charani’s parent has lone 1 happening to archer her daughter: “Chinna, you bash immoderate you privation to, I americium with you.” That unflinching religion has recovered its reward. When Shree Charani came backmost from the England circuit successful July, she talented her parent with a golden ringing — a reminder that her religion was ne'er misplaced.

For Kranti Goud’s family, the sacrifices were possibly greater. After the bowler’s begetter mislaid his occupation arsenic a constabulary constable, her parent sold her jewellery truthful their girl could support playing. This July, aft Goud’s heroics successful England, her colony celebrated by putting up congratulatory posters successful her name. One day, immoderate strangers followed these posters each the mode to her home; uncovering Goud away, they posed alternatively with her parent who present basks successful the glow of her daughter’s fame.

For these mothers, the pridefulness is personal. But for the country, the meaning is larger. Daughters are nary longer exceptions; they are relation models. And arsenic India heads into a location World Cup, these stories from the smaller towns and villages punctual america that women’s cricket is not conscionable a sporting movement. It is portion of a deeper societal transformation, of families rewriting what is imaginable for their daughters. And of India itself slowly, but surely, keeping gait with their dreams and ambitions.

Dreams that erstwhile ended successful dusty colony grounds present agelong to the world’s champion stadiums and biggest competitions. And successful that arc lies the communicative of a changing India — wherever young women nary longer hold for support to dream, but assertion the spotlight arsenic their own.

The writer is an autarkic sports media nonrecreational and writer of the award-winning book Free Hit: The Story of Women’s Cricket successful India.