The ICC Ladies’s ODI World Cup 2025, set to be hosted by India and co-hosts Sri Lanka, will start on September 30, with the semi-finals scheduled for October 29 and 30 and the ultimate on November 2. Eight groups will struggle for the final word title, because the occasion will see a complete of 31 matches shall be performed over 34 days in a round-robin format. The highest 4 groups will progress to the knockouts.
Following some slim misses prior to now, the Harmanpreet Kaur-led India are one of many favourites to raise the silverware, particularly because the match is ready to be performed at residence. Sachin Tendulkar, who is aware of a factor or two about profitable the World Cup, has billed India to be on the “cusp of its personal watershed second”. As written in a column for ICC:
I usually return to that magical night of June 25, 1983, when India’s fearless band of brothers lifted the World Cup at Lord’s. I used to be barely 10 years outdated, however the photographs of the gamers working with stumps and bails, together with Mohinder Amarnath, who additionally received the Man of the Match in each the semi-final and the ultimate; and of the staff holding that gleaming trophy aloft, are etched in my thoughts ceaselessly. For me, it was not only a cricket match – it was a revelation. That win advised a whole technology of younger Indians that desires needn’t be constrained by boundaries.
The tales from that marketing campaign, like Kapil paaji’s legendary 175 towards Zimbabwe – a knock that may not have been televised however is immortalized, are etched in our reminiscence as folklore. That innings was not nearly runs; it was about perception. It advised each boy within the gullies of Mumbai or villages of Punjab that aspiration might be limitless. It definitely formed my very own journey. 4 years later, in 1987, I used to be a ball boy on the Wankhede Stadium when India misplaced to England within the semi-final. Standing on the sidelines that day, watching heroes up shut, I resolved that at some point I too would put on that India jersey.
Now, almost 4 many years later, I sense that girls’s cricket in India stands on the cusp of its personal watershed second. The upcoming ICC Ladies’s World Cup is not going to simply be about chasing a trophy; it is going to be about igniting numerous desires. Someplace in Moga, a teenage lady is perhaps clutching her bat tighter, hoping to emulate her idol Harmanpreet Kaur. In Sangli, one other lady is perhaps training her drives, daring to dream like Smriti Mandhana.
I nonetheless keep in mind vividly Harmanpreet’s magnificent 171 towards Australia within the 2017 World Cup. It was not simply an innings; it was an announcement. The sheer audacity of her strokeplay, the readability of her thoughts, and the braveness in her coronary heart took girls’s cricket in India into a brand new orbit. I consider that was the second when many stopped seeing girls’s cricket as a sideshow—it turned centre stage.
Smriti, too, has turn into one of the vital vital and skilled members of this aspect. There’s a silken grace to her batting, a pure rhythm in the best way she instances the ball. Her capability to search out gaps with such class jogs my memory of the best within the recreation. That record-breaking 50-ball century towards Australia was not solely breath-taking – it was a powerful message that Indian girls can dominate on the very highest stage. She is not only an elite batter, however a logo of contemporary India’s confidence.
However this World Cup is bigger than people, bigger even than a single staff. It’s a couple of motion, a shift in how we view the sport. For too lengthy, girls’s cricket lived within the shadows, regardless of the immense expertise it nurtured. Now, the game has the chance to transcend boundaries—of gender, of notion, of accessibility. The little lady with a plastic bat in a small city should really feel that the world is open to her, simply as I felt after watching a triumphant Crew India in 1983.
I have to acknowledge the strides made prior to now few years. The Ladies’s Premier League has been nothing wanting a game-changer. It has offered the platform, visibility, and monetary safety that generations of ladies cricketers might solely dream of. A variety of credit score should go to Jay Shah, who, throughout his time as BCCI secretary, pushed for equal match charges for women and men and laid the inspiration for the WPL. These steps could seem administrative on paper, however in actuality, they alter lives. They inform each aspiring younger lady that her ardour is valued equally. I additionally wish to thank the ICC for asserting report prize cash for this match, even surpassing what was on supply for the lads’s World Cup in 2023. Symbolically and virtually, it sends a robust message—that girls’s cricket deserves not simply applause, however equal respect.
As the ladies in blue step onto the sector on this World Cup, they won’t simply be representing India in a sporting contest. They are going to be carrying with them the hopes of tens of millions, the opportunity of inspiring a technology, and the facility to redefine what’s achievable. Simply as 1983 gave Indian cricket a brand new identification, I consider this World Cup can do the identical for girls’s cricket in India.
And maybe, years later, some little lady watching this World Cup will say: that was the day my journey started.
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