Women’s cricket: Rise of its popularity

After the exciting years of women’s cricket in the 1970s, popularity died down in the less successful decades that followed.

However, the Indian women’s cricket team has recently been making a comeback, hitting a peak with the World Cup Semifinal match against Australia last Thursday. Despite the loss of the Indian women team in the world cup, the team managed to win the hearts of fans with their incredible gameplay.

In particular, Harmanpreet Kaur, a recent addition to the team, blew people out of the water with her outstanding performance in the match. She hit an unbeaten 171 of 115 balls, with twenty fours and seven sixes.

Her phenomenal performance was soon all over social media and was inspiring to both fans of the team and aspiring women’s cricket players.

Women’s cricket has become particularly popular because of the number of people who are able to watch and experience the match for themselves. In the team’s 2005 win against New Zealand in the World Cup and their 2006 victory against England in the Test series, neither were popularly televised.

However, this year, millions of people are watching the World Cup, simply because more people have access to televised broadcasting now than they did a decade ago. Therefore, more people are coming to know and appreciate the sport of cricket, and more people are holding pride in Indian players.

Teen cricket players Ayushi Soni and Shreya Sharma both express how Kaur’s performance was an eye-opener for them, breaking many boundaries of possibility.

Regardless of the loss in final of World Cup against England, the semifinal match has ensured that Indian enthusiasm about women’s cricket will be on the rise once again.

Image Credit: Robert Drummond / CC0 1.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Source: IMG_2728

Image Reference: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:2017_Women%27s_Cricket_World_Cup_IMG_2728_(35301473954).jpg