The Stock of Women’s cricket is on the rise and its about time. There are more and more sound bites available in the media, on social media, in the newspapers and this is only good news. Like their male counterparts, women cricketers deserve their time in the sun and 2017 and now 2018 were years when women’s cricket took all the right steps.
As we take a look back at the year 2018, we will focus on a few key tournaments, series and events that made the news.
The Big Behemoth wakes up, finally!
After India’s stellar run in the 50 over world cup of 2017, seeing the interest and following it generated in India, finally got the BCCI to show some interest in women’s cricket beyond the obvious. The number of women cricketers centrally contracted by the BCCI also went up to 19. Although the difference in the pay scale for men and women left a lot to be desired. Let us just say that if this disparity existed in tennis, there would be riots. The performances on the field of the Indian cricket team certainly helped BCCI realize that there was some money to be made here by marketing women’s cricket in a better and different way. A sign of this was during the 2018 IPL, when an exhibition women’s T20 match was held in May at the Wankhede stadium between two sides captained by Indians Harmanpreet Kaur and Smriti Mandhana. The sides also included international starts like Meg Lanning, Suzie Bates and Ellyse Perry. It helped that the match went down to the wire with Harmanpreet’s Supernova team winning a low scoring affair by 3 wickets over Smriti’s trailblaizers.
The match did pique interest in the public and among players ( current and former) over the possibility of a women’s IPL in the coming years with India captain Mithali Raj even saying that she reckons that the women’s IPL maybe a year or two away in an interview during the Women’s T20 world cup.
It will certainly help that one of the members of the COA ( Committee of Administrators) that oversees the running of the BCCI is former India women’s cricket Diana Edulji.
The WBBL bookends the year
2018 started with the Women’s Big Bash league in its second half of the 17-18 season and saw the Sydney sixes team beat the Perth Scorchers team by 9 wickets. The matches were competitive and Australia’s Ellyse Perry emerged as the leading run getter of the tournament. The tournament also saw India’s Harmanpreet Kaur turn out and do well for the Sydney Thunder franchise ( which made the semis) and Smriti Mandhana and Veda Krishnamurthy play for the Horbart Hurricanes team.
As 2018 ended, the next season of the WBBL was in full swing and the format is certainly a hit in sport loving Australia where spectators throng the stadiums to support their women cricketers.
The Asia Cup – India’s debacle
The tournament was held in Malaysia in June 2018 with 7 teams participating in a round robin format with the top two then advancing towards the final.
The tournament was notable for the fact that it was the first time India did not emerge as champions of the Asia cup, in stead losing by 3 wickets to Bangladesh in the final. Bangladesh had earlier beaten them in the group stages as well. This tournament also saw an unlikely result in Thailand beating Srilanka by 4 wickets. Pakistan ended up 3rd in the tournament.
The tournament result led to a coaching shuffle within the Indian cricket team and Romesh Powar took over as coach after the tournament.
The Women’s T20 world cup – the big prize
The 6th edition of the Women’s T20 world cup was played in West Indies in November. The West indies were the defending champions and along with England, Australia and New Zealand were one of the favourites to win the tournament. In fact, these 4 were expected to make the Semi Finals. 10 nations played the tournament and were split into 2 groups with the top 2 after the round robin matches progressing to the Semis. England and West Indies from the ‘big four’ of women’s T20 cricket in group A and Australia and NZ in group B.
West Indies were in no mood to relinquish their title and quashed all the teams in their group stages to top their pool. The resilience and depth of their squad was tested particularly against South Africa, where after scoring only 107 in their 20 overs, their bowlers, led by Stefanie Taylor blew the South Africans for 76. Later, Diandra Dottin guided them home by top scoring in a low scoring chase against England which they won with only 3 balls to spare.
England finished second in the group behind West indies to whom they lost. Their task was made tougher as one of their games early on in the tournament got rained out. This made their match against the South Africans a virtual knock out game. England won that game quite comfortably.
Asia Cup winners Bangladesh faired poorly to finish bottom of group A below Srilanka with South Africa third behind England
Group B did not turn out to be so straight forward for the top 2 ranked sides Australia and New Zealand.
In fact, the very first match of the group showed India’s potential. Led by a brilliant hundred by captain Kaur ( 103 of only 51 balls) India posted 194 against New Zealand who could only manage 160 in reply. India went from strength to strength in the tournament after that, beating arch rivals Pakistan in their next match, then smashing Ireland before facing Australia in their final group match.
New Zealand’s loss to India meant they had to get the better of Australia to be in the mix to reach the top 2 position in the group. In the match between the two sides, led by Alyssa Healy’s 53, Australia posted a competitive 153. The New Zealanders wilted under the pressure of what was at stake during their reply to fold for 120. Thus the match between India and Australia became a match to determine the table topper. This time it was Mandhana who led the Indian charge and they beat Australia comprehensively by 48 runs.
The Semis saw Australia take on the hosts West indies while India locked horns with England.
Healy once again starred with the bat in Australia’s stirring 71 run win over West indies.
In the second semi final – a bizarre Indian team decision to drop Mithali Raj from the playing eleven came back to haunt them as they collapsed batting first to score only 112. A score which England overhauled with ease to win by 8 wickets.
The Final saw England get bundled out for 105, which the Aussies scored with almost 5 overs to spare to win their 4th World T20 women’s title.
The game saw Elyssa Perry become the first Cricketer ( male or female) to take 100 T20I wickets.
Alyssa Healy was awarded the player of the series award for being the leading and most consistent scorer in the tournament.
The event was watched around the world, especially in India, with the team doing well, and generated a good buzz on social media.
Best of the Rest
While the Asia Cup and the Women’s T20 world cup were the marquee tournaments, there were other notable performances also during the year.
Australia were dominant, in May against Pakistan in Malaysia, winning a three match ODI series 3-0 before which they had blanked the Indian team 3-0 in India. Pakistan had earlier beaten Srilanka in Srilanka in both the ODI and T20 formats. After winning the ODI series against India, Australia also went on to win a tri-series in India featuring England as the third team.
India beat England and did well away in South Africa winning both the ODI and the T20 series, with Mithali Raj, Poonam Yadav and Smriti Mandhana being the standout players. They also beat Srilanka in Srilanka in both the ODI and T20 series which saw the emergence of young India player Jemimah Rodrigues.
NewZealand Toured England where England won the ODI series 2-1. They also played a tri-series T20 tournament in England with South Africa as the third team. England came out on top here as well with their bowler Sophie Ecclestone picking the player of the series award for 10 wickets in 5 games.
England had also beaten South Africa in an ODI series 2-1.
South Africa and West Indies played a series in West indies. The ODI series ended tied 1-1 and the T20 series tied 2-2. Even Srilanka toured West indies in October 2018 where they played a 3 match T20 and 3 match ODI series. The West indies won both 3-0. Stefanie Taylor and Diandra Dottin performed well.
The Teams of the Year
In December, ICC named its T20 and ODI teams of the year –
ICC Women’s ODI Team of the Year (in batting order):
Smriti Mandhana (India)
Tammy Beaumont (England)
Suzie Bates (New Zealand) (captain)
Dane van Niekerk (South Africa)
Sophie Devine (New Zealand)
Alyssa Healy (Australia) (wicketkeeper)
Marizanne Kapp (South Africa)
Deandra Dottin (Windies)
Sana Mir (Pakistan)
Sophie Ecclestone (England)
Poonam Yadav (India)
ICC Women’s T20I Team of the Year (in batting order):
Smriti Mandhana (India)
Alyssa Healy (Australia) (wicketkeeper)
Suzie Bates (New Zealand)
Harmanpreet Kaur (India) (captain)
Natalie Sciver (England)
Ellyse Perry (Australia)
Ashleigh Gardner (Australia)
Leigh Kasperek (New Zealand)
Megan Schutt (Australia)
Rumana Ahmed (Bangladesh)
Poonam Yadav (India)
4 Players in Bates, Mandhana, Healy and Yadav made both squads and Bates was named captain of the ODI team while Kaur was named captain of the T20 team.
India’s Smriti Mandhana was named the ICC woman cricketer of the year (only the second Indian to be named so) and also the ICC Women’s ODI player of the year. Australia’s Alyssa Healy was named Women’s T20 player of the year. The T20 list saw a Bangladeshi player named for the first time ever.
Coach Controversies
Shortly after India’s exit from the 2018 World T20 semi final all hell broke loose as a feud erupted between Star India player Mithali Raj and the then Interim Coach Ramesh Pawar. Mithali accused Pawar of dropping her from the team before the T20 semifinal and also accused him along with COA member Diana Edulji of trying to stymie her career. She also said many in the team were opposed to his methods. Pawar in turn accused Raj of putting her aspirations before the teams by not agreeing to bat lower down the order for the sake of better team balance and threatening to retire mid-way into the tournament if she was not allowed to open the innings. This spat prevented his term from being automatically extended and instead applications for the post of the coach were sought by the BCCI. During all this, Harmanpreet Kaur and Smriti Mandhana came out in support of Pawar being made to continue as coach saying his methods had transformed the team mentality and brought a winning attitude within the team. She also said that the decision to drop Raj was not entirely Pawar’s but of the team management, keeping the larger interest of the team in mind. Players like Ekta Bisht and Raj opposed him thus bringing to light differences within the Indian team.
So, 28 people applied for the Indian Women’s team coach with prominent names such as Gary Kirsten (who coached India to world cup success), Venkatesh Prasad, Manoj Prabhakar, Brad Hogg and WV Raman. Pawar too reapplied, with Edulji pushing for him to remain coach. Interviews were held of the candidates and on December 20, WV Raman was named coach of the team. Raman had a brief international career with the Indian Men’s team in the early 90s but is recognized as one of the better Indian coaches around. Let us see how his stint goes
That, in a nutshell was women’s cricket in 2018. Hoping for more prominence in the years to come.
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