Boundaries broken: Women’s cricket finally gets its due

Indian women’s cricket had a great week. On Wednesday, BCCI announced the kick-off of a T20 Women’s Premier League with five city-based franchises sold for an aggregate Rs 4,670 crore. Later, on Friday, the Indian under-19 women’s team reached the final of the ongoing T20 World Cup in South Africa. T20 is cricket’s most commercially viable format. The absence of a WPL meant that Indian women’s cricket was short-changed as BCCI’s attention was focussed almost entirely on men’s cricket.

The latent potential in women’s cricket was underlined by two aspects of the WPL auction. Three of the five successful bidders also run IPL teams. The auction also witnessed geographically dispersed bidding. Women’s cricket is not just a big city phenomenon – Dharamsala and Guwahati saw spirited bidding. Leveraging the commercial potential will provide a booster for women cricketers in much the same way as it did for men. It will now provide livelihood opportunities for a far bigger pool of players. The related spin-off will be more resources for the domestic structure. The combined effect will rub off on the international performances of the Indian women’s team.

Indian women’s cricket has been always neglected, dependent on the benevolence of male administrators. With the advent of compelling economic reasons to promote women’s cricket, BCCI will no longer ignore it. WPL has the potential to transform the women’s game in India.

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