Yesterday, covering the India women’s match day minus one practice and press conference was a revelation; a stark reminder of where we as a society like to put women. Match day minus one is always big – for the men’s game. Journalists will attend with a broken arm or leg and editors back would have the scalp of your head if you did not attend or send footage from the match day minus one PC and practice, because it shows a team’s state preparation, or gives a sense of who’s going to be in the final eleven.
But hey, wait, that’s only for the men! The Indian women’s team’s press conference at Lord’s had only a small handful of journalists – four to be precise, of them two were from RevSportz. And thereafter, at the practice session in the Nursery Pavilion, with Harmanpreet Kaur, Smriti Mandhana, Yastika Bhatia, Harleen Deol, there was only RevSportz.
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After the practice, I waited under the gym opposite the Nursery Pavilion, hoping to see Smriti Mandhana who was in the gym upstairs, wanting to wish her because it was her birthday. In some time, the captain herself walked down, and nodded, as I wished best of luck to her, for today’s match. No one else. Consider the contrast – during practice, men’s captain Shubman Gill cannot even take a bio break between shots in the nets without being hung onto by some journalist or other. And to his credit, he stops to speak and return most greetings. As did Mandhana, when she finally descended and stopped for a minute for a picture and acknowledged my birthday greeting.
I had asked the same question of media presence of Pratika Rawal, seeing an almost empty conference room, whereas most of the Indian media contingent covering cricket was still in and around London. Pratika seemed a little surprised at the question – possibly women’s cricketers are used to empty conference rooms – though she responded with grace and is immensely articulate.
So where does that leave us? Men’s cricket is serious business apparently, women’s cricket mere entertainment and that too – often less than the mainstream Indian media’s stepchild!
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