Around the wicket

Ahead of WPL 3, women’s cricket report card is complex, but its forward direction is clear

Team India won the inaugural ICC U-19 Women’s T20 World Cup and is smashing it at the second one as well. They have won all their group matches as if the opposition wasn’t worth its name. This is already a much better showing than their seniors lately, who crashed out of their T20 World Cup last year in the group stage, followed by a 3-0 drubbing in an ODI series in Australia. For critics, this poor performance has been a stick to beat WPL as well. With the third season of Women’s Premier League set for takeoff mid-Feb, stocktaking of what it’s done for women’s cricket is merited, but must be fair.

Yes, the picture is not all rosy. Fitness standards continue to be a sore spot. Performance standards really lag Australia’s Women’s Big Bash League. Comparisons with the men’s game, on everything from the size of contracts to audience can be disheartening. But IPL is about to see its 18th season. Over most of these years, India just didn’t have structured women’s cricket.

Yet, WPL 1 final had a 10mn global viewership, the highest ever for a women’s sport event. WPL 2 went past 100mn within 15 games. WPL 3 will be played across Bengaluru, Lucknow, Mumbai and Vadodara – up from just one city in 2023 and two in 2024. And these years have been transformative for the sport’s ecosystem. Smriti Mandhana has just grabbed the ICC Women’s ODI Player of the Year mantle. Where earlier there used to be only posterboys, heroine-worship is also hip now. In the Karnataka capital, for many Royal Challengers Bengaluru fans, Shreyanka Patil is the one to take selfies with. Parents now see cricket as a career pathway for their daughters. Footfalls have soared at women’s academies. Impatience with the women’s game at this stage smells of prejudice.