It Has Taken Time But Women In India Are Now Unstoppable

It’s different now, but many women over the age of 40 would remember when they tried to participate in team sports like cricket, hockey or football, they were either shooed away by the boys or scolded by their parents for wasting time with "uchhal kood" (jumping about).

Sports were not considered ‘suitable’ for girls, particularly after puberty, and making a career out of playing a ‘game’ was not even in the realm of possibility. Which is why the Indian women’s team winning the World Cup is such a big thing—not just the victory, but what it will do for the still struggling women’s sports in the country.

There were a few female sportspersons over the years—Nilima Ghose is widely considered to be India’s first female sports star. She was part of the first female team, which included Mary D'Souza, to compete at the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki, Finland.

The one who brought the spotlight to women in sports is PT Usha, known as the "Queen of Indian Track and Field" and the "Payyoli Express”. She dominated Asian track events for nearly two decades and became a household name.

When cricket played by men dominates the Indian sports scene, everything else takes a backseat, and women have to stand even further back in the queue for recognition and reward. Still, the really persistent and hard-working female athletes, like Karnam Malleswari (Weightlifting), Mary Kom (Boxing), the Phogat sisters and Sakshi Malik (Wrestling), PV Sindhu and Saina Nehwal (Badminton), Sania Mirza (Tennis), Dipa Karmakar (Gymnastics), and Hima Das (Athletics) have broken through the indifference.

More often than not, it’s not the women from privileged families with access to funds and coaching who are the winners, but the ones who had to struggle through financial problems and snide comments from society and the particularly regressive sneering, “Who will marry this girl?”

Mitali Raj, Jhulan Goswami and Harmanpreet Kaur laid the foundations for the popularity of women’s cricket in India, and the current team of winners have built on it. Despite the cricket craze in India, it was not enough for women to play and excel; they had to fight the indifference of the sports establishment and people, who would not bother to watch women’s matches.

Organised women's cricket in India began not under the auspices of the dominant Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) but through the dedicated efforts of pioneering individuals. According to information on the net, the foundation for women's cricket was laid in the early 1970s by enthusiasts. The most crucial initial step was the registration of the Women's Cricket Association of India (WCAI) in 1973 at Lucknow, founded by Mahendra Kumar Sharma. The WCAI’s formation swiftly led to the first women’s inter-state nationals held in Pune later that year. India’s debut on the world stage came in 1976, when the senior women's team played their first-ever Test match against the West Indies in Bangalore, which ended in a draw.

Players like Shantha Rangaswamy, the first captain, and Diana Edulji were the torchbearers of this era, playing with minimal resources and overcoming immense social hurdles. They often had to travel in general train compartments, stay in basic accommodations, and struggle for even minimal match fees or equipment.

Still, India—the WCAI—hosted and played its first One-Day International (ODI) match as part of the 1978 Women's Cricket World Cup. Despite the players' hard work, women’s cricket was still stymied by lack of funding, infrastructure, and visibility. The team's international tours were managed with personal dedication and non-official sponsorships.

The turning point was the initiative by the International Cricket Council (ICC) to develop women's cricket globally; the WCAI merged with the BCCI in November 2006. This was a pivotal moment, as it placed the women's team under the wing of the world's richest and most powerful cricket board, granting them greater financial stability, better infrastructure, and enhanced coaching support.

This period was defined by the rise of Mithali Raj, the prolific batter and long-time captain who became the highest run-scorer in women's international cricket, and Jhulan Goswami, the fast bowler and world record holder for most wickets in women's ODIs. The team made history by reaching the final of the 2005 World Cup under Mithali Raj's captaincy, which was a crucial early sign of their growing potential, even before the BCCI merger.

The 2017 ICC Women's Cricket World Cup saw the team’s thrilling journey to the final and magnificent individual performances, like Harmanpreet Kaur's 171 runs against Australia in the semi-final that made her an overnight sensation. India narrowly lost the final to England, but the performance on the field by the 'Women in Blue' earned them media attention and recognition.

This led to significant policy changes, like pay parity when, in 2022, the BCCI announced equal match fees for its centrally contracted men and women cricketers across all formats (Test, ODI, and T20I). This landmark decision positioned India as one of the few nations to implement gender pay equality in match fees, dramatically boosting the professional standing of the players. The Women's Premier League (WPL), launched in 2023, revolutionised women’s cricket.

After the World Cup win, names like Smriti Mandhana, Shafali Verma, Deepti Sharma and Jemima Rodrigues are stars. Social media is awash with stories of how they rose to sporting glory from ordinary families, many from small-town India—which in itself is an achievement. Most dramatic is the story of Amanjit Kaur, whose father, Bhupinder Singh, a carpenter and woodworker, handmade a bat for his daughter when they could not afford one.

Harmanpreet Kaur's father worked as a clerk at the Moga district court; Shafali Varma’s father runs a small jewellery shop; Renuka Singh Thakur lost her father and was raised by her mother and uncle. Deepti Sharma comes from a middle-class family in Agra, and Kranti Goud from a village in Madhya Pradesh. The common factor is the support of their families and their defiance of narrow-minded social norms.

The BBC's Annesha Ghosh charts the rise of these winners. "These are women whose careers were built playing cricket in village lanes, with second-hand bats and seamless balls, and many doubting their ambition because of their gender. Theirs is a legacy that was forged because they kept going when it would have been easier to stop."

It has taken time, but these women have proved to be unstoppable.

Deepa Gahlot is a Mumbai-based columnist, critic and author

Published on: Sunday, November 09, 2025, 06:30 PM IST