ICC Women’s World T20 2018 kicks off today and what’s glorious is that the buzz this time is positive and has increased than in past times. Sports for Women has been one of the most promising factors that has led to get women in mainstream and in discussion at the national level. This cricket world cup that brings together women cricket teams from across globe has clearly set the message that women cricket teams are out there to rule and mark their names in the history of cricket.
The Indian cricket team even with slim resources is seen all geared up for the matches and look very promising in the tournament. We are happy that the discourse over women cricket teams is global now and efforts are being put to provide them with resources, equip them with all what is required to shine at international tournaments. Looking at this from empowerment perspective, its a great change that we are witnessing. But of course, this skill should have been recognized earlier and now that we have, can we also look at resources that we can provide to our women sportsperson, for them to excel in their respective fields?
Its ironic that we are only celebrating them when they are bringing some titles home, and not throughout as we do with the male sports persons. We need to have a critical look at How have we treated our female sports stars, Did we allocate a budget that was just and adequate to match the requirements and Were they empowered enough to contest at international levels?
A lot of effort goes in the making of a sports person and what we need to do remove the gender bias and get some sportsman spirit.
Meanwhile, our heartiest wishes to Captain Harmanpreet Kaur and her team Taniya Bhatia (WK), Ekta Bisht, Dayalan Hemalatha, Mansi Joshi, Veda Krishnamurthy, Smriti Mandhana, Anuja Patil, Mithali Raj, Arundathi Reddy, Jemimah Rodrigues, Deepti Sharma, Pooja Vastrakar, Radha Yadav, Poonam Yadav for the T20 World Cup.
And for all of you #WatchThis
Centre for Social Research believes in encouraging women in sports and to promote this, initiated a campaign ‘Sports For Girls’. In the programme, we conducted programmes across districts to encourage the girl athletes and provide them with as many resources as we can.