Women’s cricket

On the sidelines: After nearly two decades of being India’s leading batswoman, Mithali Raj faces her biggest test yet. Image source: 1.

“Today’s women can do anything that men can. Is the game of cricket slowly inching towards gender parity?”

Thankfully, the media have shied away from such ill-advised, snarky headlines after the explosive letter/email shot off by Indian legend Mithali Raj to the BCCI, was leaked to the media. The coach has shot back with an appraisal of his own. The matter threatens to undo the splendid progress that the women’s game has seen recently and needless to say, this situation could have been handled with a lot more tact. Ironically, it is due to the increased exposure to the women’s game that this issue has blown up so much; a few years earlier, this may not have made the headlines.

It would be tempting to call it a case of history repeating itself all over again. On the face of it, a coach and a star player at loggerheads—with some very dirty laundry being washed in public in the aftermath of the team getting knocked out of a major tournament—certainly has a nice (if you can call it that) parallel to the Virat Kohli-Anil Kumble saga that played out last year. But this matter isn’t a case of a team not liking a coach’s supposedly headmasterly methods; instead, it is the star player accusing the coach, Ramesh Powar, of selectorial prejudice and injustice. Perhaps the closest parallel to this is the Ganguly-Greg Chappell soap opera that played out in 2005 and 2006, and Ganguly hasn’t lost any time weighing in on the issue. (Psst! Chappell was right to drop Ganguly in the ODIs, but that is a matter for another day. Hush!)

In the midst of all this, there are two issues that need processing as fans all over are looking for answers. One, can the authorities (in this case, BCCI) step in to address the problem? And two, from an analytical perspective, how fair was it to axe India’s greatest batswoman for India’s most important match of the tournament?

The selection panel and captain reign supreme in team selection matters; it has always been this way. In some cases, the captain is part of the selection team as well. And in other cases, the captain can throw his/her weight behind a certain set of players during the selection meeting while picking the squad (which may or may not be agreed upon by the panel, depending on the setup). Once this is done, the matter of picking the eleven for each match is handled by the team management. So the captain Harmanpreet Kaur and coach Ramesh Powar were well within their rights to pick or drop any player as they deemed fit. Don’t we all remember the days when Dhoni was blamed for favouring Rohit Sharma and Ravindra Jadeja in the late noughties? Or when various other captains asked for players from their respective Ranji or zonal teams? Why, Karun Nair didn’t make the eleven in the England tour. This is not the first (and certainly not the last) time a selection matter has caused much consternation and heartburn, but the captain and coach are well within their rights to pick the team that they want.

Mithali Raj has written to the BCCI for “grievance redressal”, and there is no problem in that as well, but given the way cricket has always functioned, BCCI shouldn’t interfere in selection matters. The board can definitely look at the larger picture of Powar’s functioning and performance based on the feedback from the entire team (similar to what they did with his predecessor, Tushar Arothe), but once the selection committee has done its job, the baton of decision-making in team matters should be passed to the team management. There is an additional wrinkle to this issue as well. While Diana Edulji, a member of the CoA (which administers BCCI), has rightly said that CoA would not involve itself in selection matters, Tushar Arothe has alleged her of double standards, quoting a supposed instance which contradicted her present stance. If this is true, it is a fair criticism.

And now to the second part—was Mithali Raj holding the team back?

Since 1 January 2015, the average batswoman/batter (positions 1-7) has scored 19.14 runs per dismissal @101.16 SR against the top 6 T20I teams (Australia, England, India, South Africa, New Zealand and West Indies). The evolution of the game over the last two 2-year periods (*until 28^th November 2018) can be gleaned from studying the average and strike rate stats at each batting position.

Table 1: Evolution of WT20I batting stats since 2015.

“Today’s women can do anything that men can. Is the game of cricket slowly inching towards gender parity?”

And now to the second part—was Mithali Raj holding the team back?

Disclaimer: The image used in this article is not the property of this blog. It has been used for representational purposes. The copyright, if any, rests with its rightful owners.

2017_Women's_Cricket_World_Cup_IMG_2653_(35334417723)

Where does women’s cricket go from here? Image source: 1.

While Virat Kohli’s wrist spinners were busy bamboozling the South African batsmen and grabbing the headlines in the papers back home, the Indian women’s cricket team notched up a significant victory of their own. Part of ICC’s Women’s Championship, the Indian women landed on South African shores around the same time the men were playing an ODI series of their own. Away from the glare of cameras and media attention (more on this shortly), the ladies wrapped up the 3 match ODI series in quick time, walloping their South African counterparts in the first two matches at Kimberley. En route to the series win a match to spare, opener Smriti Mandhana scored her career best and Jhulan Goswami became the first bowler to amass 200 ODI wickets. In this historical diamond mining town, the Indian gems shone the brightest.

It wasn’t so long ago that these women were the cynosure of sporting attention, albeit for a short while. On a cheerful day in July 2017, the Indian women’s cricket team locked horns with their English counterparts for the title of the ICC Women’s World Cup at London. Chasing a total of 229 in 50 overs, the team stayed in the hunt until the 45^th over when Anya Shrubsole snared both Veda Krishnamurthy and Jhulan Goswami to induce panic in the ranks. The Indian women lost by an agonizing 9 runs, but won plenty of hearts, new-found fans and viewers in the process. But what enabled this in the first place? A television broadcast.

Speaking after that final, Mithali Raj rued the lack of experience in the Indian team, and felt it was a factor when push came to shove. She was right. In her 18 year career, she has played only 189 ODIs and 10 test matches. Even a player of her experience had only played only ~10 ODI matches a year; what hope did the greenhorns have? Between the South Africa series and the World cup, their international calendar was barren. In fact, a year ago, this team won a quadrangular series in South Africa last year (before the World Cup). After securing the win, Mithali Raj bemoaned the lack of television coverage for the women’s game:

“Back in India, we do have a lot of people coming and watching the matches. It is important that we market the sport. If we are playing a series, or a bilateral series, it is important that it is broadcaster because a lot of people back home are so inquisitive to know the result of the game. They do follow it over the net, but if it is broadcasted, it can make a huge difference for the profile of the game as well as for the players.”

One year later, on the back of a fantastic World Cup campaign and a sufficiently long notice period, little seems to have changed. While the ongoing men’s series has had plenty of airtime, pre-match and post-match analyses, highlights packages and so on, the women’s matches have had no broadcast. The official BCCI page also did not have commensurate coverage. Hardcore fans had to resort to scorecard updates from the BCCI Women twitter feed to satiate themselves. Needless to say, it was an unsatisfactory experience.

Imagine watching a cliff-hanger season finale of a rivetting, award-winning drama series. There is plenty of buzz about the new twist on the internet and everyone can’t wait for the upcoming season to see how it plays out. You, along with many others, wait for months for the new season’s opening episode to resolve the mystery. Except, in this case, there is no forthcoming episode; only a break in continuity which kills the very momentum that had been built up all this while on the back of historic results. And just like that, the lack of a broadcast has robbed them of a chance to continue their story with the fans they had gained in mid-2017. And it is these women who will be devastated by another recent body blow–cricket missing its date with the 2022 Commonwealth games.

Women’s cricket was originally penciled in the 2022 edition, which is scheduled during the months of July and August. But the Commonwealth Games Federation wanted to include only those sporting disciplines which would be played by both men and women. Meaning, this edition would clash with many domestic (men’s) T20 commitments which has become the economic lifeline of cricket boards. Sadly, the ones to bear the brunt will be the women who will once again have to contend with a lack of a headlining focal point to their fixtures.

The Commonwealth Games is a relic (and I mean this in a good way) from the times of the British Empire involving athletes from the Commonwealth of Nations. The game of cricket is a recognized sport and has featured only once—at the 1998 Commonwealth games held in Malaysia. No doubt, a Commonwealth Games medal might not feature high on the agenda of professional male cricketers who might count marquee bilateral series and the World cup as the blue chip tournaments. But it must also be remembered that ten years ago, a newly-minted IPL trophy or a World T20 title were worth nothing in terms of historic value. Yet, that didn’t stop teams and players from partaking in the activity, enriching it, and carving a history for themselves and for the sport.

The Indian women don’t have their own IPL, and it is not for a lack of asking; only a few play in the Women’s Big Bash League. Domestic T20 leagues mainly enlist domestic players and top available freelancing international players. It is safe to say that the Indian women will not feature in big numbers in the WBBL unless they become accomplished T20 players, which once again points in the direction of fixtures and scheduling. But a bigger point is unless these competitions have a structure over multiple levels which are financially self-sustaining (like European football), they would not provide an opportunity to scores of cricketing aspirants of varying ability from different countries.

On the other hand, a focal point of an Olympics provides significant funding from sporting and government sources and bring much needed attention to the sport. An Olympic-style football participation model would have taken care of levelling the playing field to some extent. This will no doubt be a lot more inclusive in introducing the sport at the global stage and go a long way in popularizing the sport and adding more fans to the game. Another case in point is the recent Khelo India games, which has showcased the best of upcoming talent on nationwide television.

Given these traditional difficulties, women’s cricket should not suffer from a lack of institutional support and needs all the help that it can get to compete on even terms. The first of many steps has to come from the powers that be like BCCI and ICC. A little bit of planning, foresight and institutional support will no doubt go a long way in game accessible to fans and setting the stage for a robust women’s cricketing ecosystem. Surely the world’s richest cricket board can spare a few more rupees and grey cells for this cause?

Disclaimer: The image used in this article in not the property of this blog. It has been used for representational purposes only. The copyright, if any, solely rests with its respective owners.