‘Chak De! India’ Once More

My nine-year-old niece is an avid cricket fan. She is also a budding cricketer. Her parents and the extended family support her dreams as her coaches do.

However, imagine our shock when we realized the deep gender bias she faces from her peers every time she goes out to her cricket coaching classes. Whenever there are friendly matches among the players attending the camp, she is never given a chance to bat or bowl voluntarily because her team captain thinks she is not up to the mark, just because she is a girl. Only when the coach intervenes does she get the chance to bat or bowl. It has nothing to do with her prowess as a batter or a spin bowler because she is a natural. But the gender bias is so strong among boys who are hardly ten or eleven years old, that even 18 years after the release of “Chak De! India“, women in sports continue to face discrimination.

The shocking gender bias makes her only more determined. During my gentle probing, I discovered she is also mercilessly sledged, mostly by the wicketkeeper and the close-in fielders of the opponent team.

“They try to break my concentration by saying, ‘Don’t worry, she is a girl. She won’t be able to connect or score much.’ I feel like whacking him,” she grumbled. Of course, she doesn’t. But when she ends up scoring the highest or second-highest or stays on the crease the longest, she feels vindicated. However, her hackles are raised not when she faces such stereotyping. Instead, it is when people fail to recognise her idol, Smriti Mandhana, that infuriates her the most.

 For the uninitiated, Smriti Mandhana has been a run machine for the India Women’s team across all three formats. An elegant left-hander, she also led Royal Challengers Bengaluru to the first trophy, much before their men’s team managed to win it. No wonder this iconic cricketer has become an idol for budding players.

However, when my niece named her as the person she looks up to, most of her classmates and even the class teacher responded in unison, saying, “Who?” One of her friends (of course, a boy) solemnly proclaimed, “Women don’t play cricket.” I did wonder under what rock he crawled out of, but I thought it was not prudent to say it aloud. He has evidently not noticed that even the cricket commentary has undergone a sea change, with commentators referring to batters instead of batsmen as the women continue to smash the glass ceiling along with the ball.

So, a few days ago, an advertisement really struck a chord. It showed a man donning the jersey of an Indian cricket team on match day. Actually, his wife made him do it since they were planning to watch the match at a friend’s place. But the embarrassed man covers up the jersey (incidentally, that of Mandhana) with a jacket. However, to his surprise, he finds many people donning the jerseys of the Indian Women’s cricket team on his way to the office. Even the staff manning the elevator had this to say, “Whether it is Virat (Kohli) or Smriti, it is India that is winning!” I was really floored by the heart-warming message that hit the nail of gender stereotyping right on the head.

The advertisement was released on the eve of the 2025 ICC Women’s World Cup, which will be hosted jointly by India and Sri Lanka between 30 September and 2 November. In India, the matches will be played at four venues: Mumbai, Indore, Guwahati, and Visakhapatnam.

Significantly, ICC has announced that the total prize money of the Women’s World Cup 2025 would be $13.88 million (US $), more than the men’s edition ($10 million) that was played in 2023. In the last edition of the Women’s World Cup, held in 2022, the total prize money was only $3.5 million.

The ICC has truly held up its end and now it is for us to do the same.

This autumn, we can imagine Maa Durga with a bat, ball, wicket-keeping gloves, and stumps instead of the traditional weapons, a reminder to us to show the same support and love we shower on our male cricketers to our women’s cricket team. Maybe then we can redeem ourselves in the eyes of a nine-year-old budding cricketer.        

By Anindita Chowdhury

Anindita Chowdhury is a special correspondent of the English daily, The Statesman. She is based in Hyderabad. Apart from reporting, she writes short stories and essays with special focus on history, particularly the social and cultural aspects of the bygone era. She can be contacted at aninditasmail@gmail.com.