Australia Lifts Women’s T20 World Cup - Time of Women in Blue Begins - News18
News 18THE HISTORICAL DAY Sunday, February 26, 2023. BUT FIRST–THE STORY OF THE OTHER MATCH Having examined how easily mighty Australia won the final, before proceeding further, I dissect the other match, the India-Australia semifinal in which after the Indian loss, a leading Indian TV channel’s headline was- “India’s ‘Sloppy Fielding’ In Women’s T20 World Cup Semi-final Leaves Fans Infuriated.” There were more disparaging headlines elsewhere, which forces me to give my own perspective of the semifinal, which I consider amongst the finest display of Women in Blue. The first three tests at Bangalore, Madras, and Delhi were drawn and when the rival teams descended to play the fourth test in the ancient city of Pataliputra from where the history of India for 1000 years from 6BC to 6AD was crafted, little did India know that the ‘time to script the history of women’s cricket in India had arrived.’ On November 17, 1976, when West Indies captain Brown and her Indian counterpart Rangaswamy walked out to toss at the Moin-ul-Haq Stadium, in front of a wildly roaring houseful crowd of 25,000, yours truly was in the stands not to miss a nanosecond of action. Here it goes- One, for the uninitiated, compared to men’s cricket, which played first test against England in 1932 at Lords under the captaincy of CK Nayudu, women’s cricket in India arrived much later. Six, in 1973, when the first Women’s ODI World Cup rolled out in England, two years before the inaugural Men’s World Cup, India was not part of seven teams.