When the Indian men’s team played at Lord’s, the media was there in numbers to cover it. When the women played at Lord’s last night and trained the day before, there was no one except Sharmistha Gooptu and Rohit Juglan from Revsportz to report on the game. That no one else covered it is fine by us. Who are we to comment on what others will do or should do? Our job is to disrupt and offer holistic coverage and we will. Our job is to try and support the women’s game as much as the men. In fact, one of the things I did while in India for 3 days before leaving for Manchester today was to finalise the plan for the women’s world cup in September-October 2025. Yet again the Revsportz team will be on ground from the warm-up matches onwards to cover the tournament.
While we will do what we need to do, the thing that has troubled me is the acceptance that the women’s game will never get adequate support. From fans, and many women among them, this acceptance is troubling. The attitude is negative. The statements speak of a kind of resignation. That’s where I have issues. The goal should always be gender equality and while we all know that it is still far off, the attempt should always be to get there.
The argument that the women haven’t won anything and hence the coverage is an issue is total rubbish. The men’s team did not win anything between 2013-2024 and yet the coverage never dipped. In the same timeframe, the women made the finals of the ODI world cup in England in 2017 and the T-20 world cup in Australia in 2020. And yet the coverage did not take off. For a good 18 years, RCB did not win the IPL. And yet coverage was never an issue. To say that the women need to win something for us to cover the sport is just an excuse. By the same yardstick, one shouldn’t cover the Olympics as India hardly wins. And there should be more coverage of the Paralympics because India wins more medals. The truth is exactly the opposite. Paralympics struggles for coverage while there were many Indian journalists in Paris to cover the Olympics.
With a home world cup round the corner and with the team doing exceptionally well in England, we should all get behind the girls and the sport. It could well be the turning point for the women’s game, and in such a scenario many more will come and take up the sport making it an aspirational story in the country. There is reasonable money in women’s cricket and with many taking it up as a profession, India could well be the powerhouse in the next decade. For it to happen, the first change that has to take place is to get rid of this negative attitude. To accept that the women can never match their male counterparts is the worst thing possible. And while I am conscious it is an uphill battle, the truth is we will continue to strive. David does beat Goliath, and the underdog does win. In sport, more so. And I love underdog stories.
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