As the Indian team battles it out down under for the World Cup, it is of interest to trace the history of the women?s game in India. Rich in heritage, yet lost to most, it is a history that will put to shame the administrators who feel that the game is only of a very recent lineage.
When exactly did Indian women?s tryst with cricket begin? In trying to answer this question chroniclers and scribes have invariably turned their attention to the 1970s.
However, as is often the case with history, new findings contest the old and make for fascinating new revelations. One such startling revelation is that women?s cricket in India was born amidst the unstable political ethos of the 1890s when women first played men in competitive cricket matches. Initially, matches were played between mixed teams with six men and six women making up a team. News reports published in the magazine Indian Cricket in the 1930s has documented women?s first forays into cricket.
Interestingly, women cricketers had acquired prowess in even the most difficult of skills such as batting and in a match in Kathiawar in the 1930s they beat their men counterparts comprehensively.
Contemporary reports singled out the extraordinary batting prowess of the players and declared that in a season or two our women would be ready to play the best European talent in India. Women players, wearing saris the Maharashtrian way, were certainly inspired by the nationalist drive that had captured the nation?s imagination. This is evident from the contemporary journal Meye Mahal, which commends women?s involvement in sport as a major step forward in the movement for women?s emancipation.
However, such efforts were soon forgotten and women?s cricket gradually receded into the background in post-independence India. While women spectators multiplied in number, the women?s game was never given its due and continued to stagnate. For example over 2.2 crore women watched the 2003 World Cup in India alone. Female viewership comprised an astounding 46% of the total World Cup viewing population and TRPs for female viewership for India matches climbed to a phenomenal 9.8, significantly higher than the 3.9 registered during the Nat West Trophy final played at Lords in June 2002. Mandira Bedi became a celebrity and was soon a part of life even for women in conservative Indian households. Purists like Wisden, which condemned the experiment with women anchors during the ICC Champions Trophy in Colombo in September 2002, were forced to retreat. Women joined betting circles and housewives in Delhi and Ahmedabad formed clubs to enjoy the sport.
Interestingly, an analysis of the cricket viewing Indian women population brings into focus the contrasting subjectivities of the male and female sections of the population. While cricket has become mass entertainment, the game itself continues to be a male preserve. Women, while claiming to be ardent viewers, have altogether forgotten about women?s cricket. Women cricketers in India, except stars like Anjum Chopra, are mainly from lower-middle class backgrounds who try their hand at the game because they have few other livelihood options. With financial crisis permanently threatening them, women?s cricket associations continue to stagnate. Leading women cricketers are seldom given due recognition and openings offered on the sports quota are never higher than the clerical grade. It is commonplace for noted women cricketers to suffer financial problems after retirement, to be rescued from such plight by welfare organisations and sports enthusiasts. It would be improper to hold the women?s cricket associations wholly responsible for the gloomy reality surrounding the women?s game. Rather, the attitude of Indian women towards sport and the accepted, and limited, parameters of women?s emancipation in the country have a role to play in crippling the development of the female performer. The female spectator, however, has been appropriated by the media and corporate brands like Coke and Pepsi. On most occasions, the female spectator has no agency and remains what we can call a ?passive consumer? of the cricket spectacle, a spectacle created and nurtured by multi-national sponsors. It will be a great step forward if the ongoing World Cup can help in changing the situation.
The writer is a cricket historian