India is a rare country where there is gender-blindness (almost) when it
comes to being ignored; male athletes are just as ignored as their
female counterparts. Football and hockey thrives in small pockets of the country but for the most part if you are not playing cricket, which is the national opiate, then you can go screw yourself. That is where the money is and that is where the fans are. The IPL season is on and the attention of all the cricket fans in India is tuned to it. While the exploits of Dhoni and his men have captured the imagination of the country, the women are ignored. Unless you are Preity Zinta or Shakshi.
The women's cricket team of India has its fair share of success but don't get the media attention they deserve. But that is not unusual. Women's cricket doesn't have an international audience and one needs the fans to sell Cola and mobile phones. I believe that this is a moment to make something incredible for the female athletes in India. And it involves some structural changes to make women's cricket a spectator sport. The game could do with some modest modifications that would make the sport more accessible for female cricketers. Modifications such as changing the length of the pitch from 22 yards to 18 or 20 yards. The boundaries can also be shortened to 60 yards. I have not interacted with Anjum Chopra or any of the cricketers to see if that would make any difference but I would imagine that with some unorthodox changes (like the diameter of the ball), it is possible to make the sport more explosive. If it can generate new interest for wider audience, the sport will take off. Lessons learnt from Tennis, where the women's professional tennis is now just as closely followed as the men's can be used to bring in sponsors/ viewers. The hope is that cricket can be one of the channels of empowering women in a highly misogynistic society where young girls are told by their brothers and friends that they cannot play cricket with them. My dream is a mixed league tournament, where one or two members in each team in IPL is a female cricketer. Now that would be something.
The women's cricket team of India has its fair share of success but don't get the media attention they deserve. But that is not unusual. Women's cricket doesn't have an international audience and one needs the fans to sell Cola and mobile phones. I believe that this is a moment to make something incredible for the female athletes in India. And it involves some structural changes to make women's cricket a spectator sport. The game could do with some modest modifications that would make the sport more accessible for female cricketers. Modifications such as changing the length of the pitch from 22 yards to 18 or 20 yards. The boundaries can also be shortened to 60 yards. I have not interacted with Anjum Chopra or any of the cricketers to see if that would make any difference but I would imagine that with some unorthodox changes (like the diameter of the ball), it is possible to make the sport more explosive. If it can generate new interest for wider audience, the sport will take off. Lessons learnt from Tennis, where the women's professional tennis is now just as closely followed as the men's can be used to bring in sponsors/ viewers. The hope is that cricket can be one of the channels of empowering women in a highly misogynistic society where young girls are told by their brothers and friends that they cannot play cricket with them. My dream is a mixed league tournament, where one or two members in each team in IPL is a female cricketer. Now that would be something.
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