There was a time in India when the women’s cricket team wasn’t a part of cricket. It was never taken seriously, and hardly any cricketer’s name was known to cricket fanatics. It will sound insensitive, but women cricketers were treated the same as players from other national-level sports like football and hockey. They used to travel on the cheapest trains and buses and stay in hostels or cheap 2-star hotels when playing domestic cricket. From the late 1990s on, we started to see the riches that came in men’s cricket, but flowers weren’t blossoming for women’s cricket.
Only in the decade of 2010 did we see some recognition given to women cricketers, and a large part of that recognition was due to the introduction of T20 cricket.
Recognition of the Players
Women cricketers of India are now getting recognised. The fans know the player by the face and can tell their attributes quite easily. This change started to happen after the 2016 cricket ICC women’s and men’s T20 World Cup. India was the host country for both events. Fans were expecting the men’s team to be title challengers as we were the hosts, but somehow fans expected the same things from the women’s team as well, without knowing their current strength.
Where the men’s team reached the semi-finals and was knocked out by the eventual champions West Indies, the women’s team couldn’t even manage to go past the group stage and was also defeated in women cricket match by our arch rival Pakistan, giving the cricket fans a great shock as Pakistan’s women’s team is considered a minnow compared to the Indian team. This was the watershed moment for the women’s cricket team, as fans started to have expectations from them and were closely watching every potential player that could win us the title, thereby giving the entire team and players their due recognition.
Expectations Grew From the Players
After the watershed moment of the 2016 semi final women match in T20 World Cup, the 2017 World Cup came, and fans were expecting great things from the Indian team. Opener Smriti Mandhana and all-rounder Deepti Sharma were the players to watch out for. The fans started to call Smriti Mandhana as the left handed Virender Sehwag of women’s cricket. Her fierce batting and exciting stroke play made her an overnight sensation among the fans.
India surprised everyone in the tournament, as they reached the finals, losing out to hosts England. Fans weren’t upset by the loss but were happy and praised the team for their effort and commitment through the tournament. Everyone reached the consensus that the Indian team from here will only go upward. And they weren’t proven wrong. Next year in the 2018 T20 World Cup, the Indian team were semifinalists, and two years later they were the finalists in the 2020 T20 World Cup.
Endorsements Galore Along With Heavy BCCI Contracts
After three back-to-back amazing performances by the Indian team in ICC events, players’ popularity increased, and for the first time women cricketers were also considered stars of Indian cricket, and with stardom came the endorsements. While we have seen the men’s team doing endorsements quite regularly, it was a new and happy occasion for the fans to see their favorite women cricketers doing the endorsements. While the then Indian Captain Mithali Raj got the L’Oreal Paris endorsement, the young Smriti Mandhana got the lucrative deal from Hyundai.
A couple of years ago, the BCCI announced their annual contracts for the women’s team and created an unwanted controversy. The highest annual contract given to men cricketers is Rs 7 crore, whereas for the women cricketers it is Rs 50 lakh. When fans learned about the difference between the two contracts, they made a lot of noise about the gender pay gap disparity but later calmed down after learning that Indian women cricketers were given the sixth-highest contract for men and women cricketers combined. But they were determined to match the men’s contract and hence started to watch more women’s cricket matches so that they could earn equal or closer to men cricketers. In 2022, BCCI equaled the match fees of men and women cricketers, thus reducing some gender pay gap disparity, however, the difference between annual contracts remains the same.
In came the WPL
In 2023, the BCCI conducted the first ever women’s premier league. Just like the IPL, the WPL also had everything gigantic in size. First, the BCCI invited the bidding for the media rights for the WPL, and then five teams were auctioned to the franchises of the IPL. The TV and digital media rights were sold to Viacom18 for 951 crores, which were more than the PSL, or Pakistan Super League, giving Indian fans an excuse to tease their Pakistani counterparts by saying “Our women earn more than your men”. Later, players were auctioned just like in the IPL, where the highest player got 3.4 crores, and she was none other than Indian opener Smriti Mandhana.
The venues for the WPL women match were DY Patil Stadium and Brabourne Stadium. Every match of the WPL was filled with more than 70 percent capacity, telling the world that the future of the WPL is filled with great possibilities. The fans are looking forward to the induction of more teams into the WPL in the future, which will give more opportunities to local and international players.
All in All
From traveling in trains and local buses to doing endorsements and playing in the WPL, the Indian women’s team has come a long way, and we can say with certainty that the evolution of women’s cricket matches hasn’t surprised anyone and they have a bright future ahead.
