A lot of questions have been raised in the past about the future of Female Cricket, about how it’s going to be able to sustain itself in the grand scheme of things with the sheer lack of context and advertising. The biggest concern was always that this version of the sport never had the viewership it deserved. But one thing has become clear, the recently concluded T20 World Cup was easily one of the best things to have happened to Women’s Cricket.
The hype around the tournament was entirely different, and much of it was because of the way ICC chose to promote it. There was a buzz and a lot of talk about it, which is quite rare when it comes to Women’s Cricket. The inaugural game between India and Australia was a living proof of that, with people in big numbers showing up to witness the start of something great. For the two weeks that it lasted, the standard of Cricket was up, and we got to watch some of the most exhilarating Cricket that we’ve seen in years from this version of the sport.
Some of the games that went right down to the wire, or had a lot of swings along the way will be etched in the memory of every fan that witnessed it. Games like the semis between Australia and South Africa, Australia and New Zealand, or the finals were the highlights of the 2 weeks of Cricket. The tournament also helped bring recognition about stalwarts of Women’s Cricket in players like Alyssa Healy, Meg Lanning, Sophie Devine, Ellyse Perry, Heather Knight, along with some fresh talented bunch like Beth Mooney, Shefali Verma, Poonam Yadav, Megan Schutt, Jess Jonassen, Jemima Rodrigues, Lizelle Lee, among few others .
The finals was easily the best game of them all. It had everything, with Katy Perry lighting up the MCG with her voice, to the record-breaking 86,174 people in the stands. Two heavy-weights went against each other and Australia showed everyone why they are renowned to be the best in the world. The game gave flashbacks of the 2003 Men’s WC Final, with Australia giving India a thrashing in all 3 facets of the game.
There were smiling faces all around, and it was unimaginable in some ways to see MCG packed for a Women’s game. This says a lot about the nature of viewership in Cricket itself. What it lacks is not the skill or the entertainment, but the context and promotion that it deserves. From a marketing perspective, your product could be the best around, but if it isn’t given the sort of recognition that it deserves, then the customers won’t come to you. But it would be fair to say that these 17 days would have eased the pain associated with being a female. It was a wonderful spectacle, and one that will inspire millions of girls all across the globe to pick up the sport and realize that they too could be the pioneer of change and be the ones to bring laurels to their nation.
-Vibhor Dubey
The Average Cricketer 