On Saturday, the Indian women’s cricket team concluded their first Test match in eight years, and achieved what no one seemed to have believed was possible – they stylishly defeated England, one of the most professional teams in women’s cricket. Skilled players. Fine form. A thrilling win. Why then is only the men’s team’s defeat on the front pages?
The Indian Womens team celebrates Test match win against England at Wormsley Cricket Ground. (Getty Images)
On the first morning at Wormsley, with that most picturesque of grounds bathed in sunshine, Niranjana Nagarajan and Jhulan Goswami set about England on a green-tinged pitch. Inclement weather was predicted for later in the day, but it was a brave call to bowl first. In England, they typically tell you to look up (at the sky) and not down (at the pitch) before deciding what to do. Mithali Raj, the captain, had disregarded the blue sky and concentrated on a surface that she felt might assist her bowlers.
In that first session, Niranjana bowled like an old pro, not someone who hardly plays any cricket in such conditions. She had the English batsmen prodding at thin air with a succession of outswingers, and would then nip one back into the pads. She took four wickets before lunch – Heather Knight, Charlotte Edwards and Lydia Greenway were all trapped in front, while Lauren Winfield, one of the debutants, edged one behind. The wicket of Edwards, one of the most celebrated players in the game’s history, was especially crucial.
For those of us watching from a small tent pitched beyond the boundary, it was almost unreal. This was not how things were supposed to pan out. England were the team with professional contracts, holders of the women’s Ashes, and had the full backing of the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB). India hadn’t even played a Test since 2006, and though they came under the umbrella of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), most of the girls needed day jobs – with the Railways, Air India and others – to make their way. Eight years earlier, Mithali and Jhulan had been part of a famous five-wicket victory, but with Indian women’s cricket having slipped steadily backwards in the interim, expectations were very low before the game.
The prevalent attitude towards the Indian girls was one of sympathy. Those that follow the women’s game regularly lamented the lack of genuine support from the BCCI and contrasted it with the strides England and Australia had made in recent times, with professionalism entering the picture. After the toss, I chatted with Raf Nicholson, a passionate follower of and fine writer on women’s cricket. We both agreed that it would be a Herculean effort if India were even competitive, with as many as eight girls in the XI not having played a Test match before.
India’s men, who had started their series so promisingly, had just been routed by an innings and 54 runs inside three days in Manchester, prompting headlines such as ‘Fold Trafford’. The best we hoped for was that the women would avoid a repeat. By lunch, however, the mood was very different. Everyone inside the little tent knew that the game was well and truly on.
I was so impressed with Niranjana’s performance that I tweeted: “A couple of the bowlers on the Indian men's team could learn from Niranjana about bowling one side of the wicket. Outstanding.#IndiaWomen” The response was almost immediate. Catherine Hanley, historian, writer and the crafter of some lovely long-form articles on the game, told me: “Careful: there's a prize for ‘commenting on women's cricket only in relation to men's’ and you don't want to win it!”
She was right too. Comparisons with the men are both spurious and demeaning. Mithali is not the women’s Tendulkar. She has not enjoyed a fraction of the adulation. There are no millions in her bank account, or thousands of billboards across the country featuring her smiling face. This is a woman who averaged 52 in the eight Tests she played before the long hiatus, who made what was then the record score in Tests (214) when she was barely out of her teens. That was 12 years ago. Even now, if she walked down the street in most Indian towns and cities, few would give her a second glance. She certainly doesn’t need to wear a wig to ensure anonymity when she ventures out.
What are the odds these women face? Where do you even start? I drove up to Wormsley that morning with Neeru Ravi, who captained Cambridge University women in varsity matches at Lord’s. Her parents moved to England when she and Nikhila, her twin, were five. The girls grew to love the game through their mother, who had come to watch the final day’s play at Lord’s earlier in the summer, when Ishant Sharma bowled India to a famous victory.
Neeru’s father was accompanying us. He has never stopped the girls playing cricket, but listening to him, it was quite obvious that he wasn’t a big fan of women in sport. “Indian women used to be mentally strong,” he told us. “Now they try to do what the men do, but have become mentally weak.” I suggested that any mental frailty had a lot to do with the attitudes they grew up with. Neeru part-grimaced her way through the conversation.
Compared to many of her counterparts in India though, she’s lucky. I remember a former player telling me about the day she went home to tell the family that she’d been picked to play for India. “If you spend all day in the sun, you’ll get dark,” was the response. “And then, which man will want to marry you?”
Shedding that ridiculous why-do-I-think-I’m-nothing-without-a-man mindset is often the first challenge for these girls. Some of the younger ones seem pretty sorted in that sense. Smriti Mandhana is all of 18 and bats with a beautiful high elbow and oodles of grace. She figured out pretty quickly that the best way to get into the newspaper pages – and stay there – was to act or play cricket. She chose cricket, and her 51 on the penultimate day was absolutely pivotal as India made light of a target of 181, the second-highest run chase in the history of women’s cricket, to win by six wickets. Mithali – who else? – was unbeaten at the end on 50.
By the time England had been skittled for 92 on the first afternoon, most of the few hundred watching from the grassy banks and media tents had already become believers. Isa Guha, who has roots in Bengal but played for England, spoke of how well the bowlers had done as a unit. The BBC had a long teatime discussion on why the women were not being supported better.
Ultimately, it boils down to you and I though. Those in the media are most important. When the women’s World Cup was played in India in 2013, most newspapers had just skeletal coverage, especially once India were eliminated in the group stage. There was not a single Indian paper represented at Wormsley on the opening day. The correspondents were all at Lord’s watching the men practise, a session that wasn’t even followed by a press conference. It’s a bit rich to talk about societal attitudes when the media itself couldn’t care less.
In England, they do. Edwards is part of publicity campaigns that the ECB runs, and very active with Chance to Shine, a charity that takes the game to children in less privileged areas. These are all initiatives that would work in India, if we showed even an iota of intent.
After some of the frankly despicable on-field abuse on view during the men’s series, it was also refreshing to see the women play as they did. Apart from encouraging shouts of ‘Ninja’ [when Niranjana was bowling] and other nicknames, and the joyous pitch invasion after the winning runs were hit, the soundtrack was very much in keeping with the pastoral joys of cricket in the English summer.
Edwards was asked afterwards if the loss was embarrassing, given the new-era headlines that had preceded the game. “It doesn’t matter how much money you’re paid if you don’t turn up,” she told the BBC with great candor. “I still think in Test cricket, we don’t play enough. We need to get our younger players playing more in this form of the game.India are perfectly suited to this format. They have some very skilled players and are a very good team.”
Mithali is almost 32, Jhulan almost 31. Both have played just nine Tests. They won’t be around too much longer. But a generation that they have inspired – despite the pitiful coverage given to the women’s game – appears primed to take over. Snehal Pradhan plays for Maharashtra, and was among the probables for the tour of England. “Younger, fitter players have been proving their international credentials over the past couple of years, and some prodigal talent is bubbling under the surface,” she wrote on her blog in June. “Only a catalyst is required. Just as the men went from being a one man batting line up to a team with a big three and a big four, the women have the quality to find themselves similarly positioned.
“The chessboard is all set for a transformation. Pawns are fast being anointed knights, bishops, and castles. They are all guarding the lone queen's flanks in her tireless attack. But the proverbial King holds all the keys. He hardly moves on the board, yet all the others move to his tune. Here's hoping that he knows the value of his pieces.”
The lone queen she speaks of is women’s cricket in India. She herself is one of the many pawns that give us hope for the future. The King, in his castle and seemingly indifferent to the both queen and pawns, is the BCCI. The Indian queen has just vanquished another, considered far more powerful. All eyes are now on that King. Your move, BCCI.
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