Australian Cricketers these days seem to find it difficult to handle the Indian Cricket flavour. A few days ago, Dhoni and his men gave a serious jolt to Australian supremacy as Ponting's team was squarely beaten in the Test series. Indian eves too have picked up cue from their male counterparts. In the Women's Cricket World cup, now on in Australia,
Indian team today stunned the defending champion Australian team. Indian team has thus avenged its loss in the finals at the last world cup in 2005. While Australia's chances of retaining the title are almost over, Indian team led by Zulan Goswami is certainly on course to be second time lucky.
The whole of India is Cricket crazy. Cricketers enjoy a huge fan following. They are equally popular, if not more than politicians and Cine stars. There is a tremendous media coverage to Cricket. But strangely, none of the popularity or media attention has come to women's Cricket. Even a common Cricket fan in India knows lot about the teams, players, the statistics and the technicalities of the game. But he hardly cares for Women's Cricket and women cricketers. With live coverage of matches, Cricket has intruded the drawing rooms of Indian homes. Hence many girls and even housewives keep an updated knowledge of Cricket world. But even the female fans pay little attention to ladies Cricket.
It is not that the Indian women are push overs in international Cricket. Former captains, Diana Edulji and Shubhangi Kulkarni were highly regarded for their Cricketing skills even by their male counterparts. Over the years Indian women Cricket has thrown many talented players like Shanta Rangaswamy, Sandhya Agarwal, Mitali Jain, Anjum Chopra, to name a few. Indian team has done consistently well against top teams, Australia, England and New Zealand. Current captain Zulan Goswami was adjudged as Cricket of the Year in 2008. Anjum Chopra, having the distinction of appearing in four world cup tournaments - a feat comparable to Sachin Tendulkar - is a well known face on TV commentators' panel putting across her observations alomg with the likes of Srikanth, Mohinder an others.
In spite of all these credentials, women's Cricket in India is very much neglected. Sania Mirza, Saina Nehwal, PT Usha these sportswomen enjoy more popularity than the female Cricketers. Ironically, this is exactly opposite to what happens in case of men, where other players complain of being given scant respect compared to men's Cricket. Things have changed slightly for the better in last couple of years since ICC has taken over women's Cricket, and in India too, BCCI looks after women's Cricket. Which means more sponsorships, more exposure, better remuneration to players. Hopefully it will result in increase in spectator interest in women Cricket. Indian team is certainly in semi finals now. Hopefully a tall and athletic Zulan Goswami wins first world cup for India, much the same way Kapil Dev did in 1983, and Women's Cricket might get a surge in popularity - much the same way men's Cricket got after the world cup victory!
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