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India’s women’s cricket needs an overhaul.
Enough of these near misses at major events and that too at the hands of Australia. Women’s cricket is currently about Australia, England and to some extent India.
The other teams are not yet there. There was a time when New Zealand was part of the troika, but it is no longer there as they suddenly have an influx of young players who are just not yet good enough.
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India has the massive advantage to overtake New Zealand and become the third part of the wheel and become one of the teams to beat. Unfortunately, West Indies, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh just do not cut it at the international level in women’s cricket.
This leaves one team with all the opportunities and that is India.
But quite unnecessarily the BCCI have meddled with women’s cricket much more than men’s cricket. It has been an afterthought. It is not quite like what it was in the early to mid-2010s, but it could be a lot better.
The Indian team that was in South Africa for the T20 World Cup had a lot of support. In fact the support staff was akin to the men’s senior team and that is a good sign. But it is important for Indian women’s cricket to become more consistent not just on the field but off it as well. Currently Indian women’s cricket has been turned episodic with a number of big bang announcements which do not quite add up.
Most importantly was the decision to name Hrishikesh Kanitkar not as the head coach but as the batting coach of the side. This was because there was not enough time to go through a process to put out an advertisement, call for applications and then run interviews. Just what was the Board busy with that they forgot that there is a simple matter of women’s cricket?
The announcement of Kanitkar happened a few days before the Australia series in December 2022. The process has still not been initiated and probably it will be forgotten now. The T20 World Cup is over and then everyone will sing praises of the BCCI for starting the Women’s Premier League (WPL). So all is forgiven and forgotten.
Shouldn’t the head coach of the women’s team, male or female, Indian or foreigner, be appointed now so that the said candidate can look at the players and make judgements? But when did we ever have such a far reaching vision from the BCCI.
The Indian women’s cricket actually needs a full-fledged women’s cricket department with a director who will be responsible for running it. This director would need a staff and a coaching team reporting to him or her at all times. This kind of piecemeal decision making currently underway is just not good enough. The head coach is good to have on a full-time basis, but the side actually needs a Director who will be responsible for the overall development of the women’s game.
Schedules have to be planned, a pathway for the under-19 girls have to be developed and the transition from the junior to senior has to be thought of. What more we also need to look at the way the senior girls are finally transitioned at the right time.
These things can’t be done on a whim as the BCCI have been doing for so long. Money coming in is no indication of the health of women’s game. You need professionals to manage the growth of the sport further. Sadly the development of women’s game will continue to wallow in mediocrity if the BCCI believes it can manage it in an ad-hoc amateur honorary fashion like it runs the game as a whole.
India will continue to underachieve in women’s cricket for a long time to come, because the team off the field is not professional enough as compared to the one on the field.
The heartbreak of Harmanpreet Kaur & Co, like the one on Thursday is not a one-off. You need a five-year vision, a mission statement, but sadly in Indian cricket everything is short-term, no one thinks long enough.
So pat yourselves on the back Harman and the girls, because you will continue to have no support from off the field.
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