One Sunday morning some years ago, I was driving along a State highway on work. It was the day of an India-Australia men’s cricket match. All through, across four districts, I could see young boys playing cricket along the roadside. In some places, young men were playing matches. In the entire distance of more than 200KM, I didn’t see a single girl at play. “Girls just don’t play cricket,” said a local official with a condescending smile when asked.
I thought of his words this weekend, on September 24, at the Lord’s Cricket Ground in London as the Indian women’s team won against England. It was also Jhulan Goswami’s farewell One Day International match after an international career of two decades, bowling 10,005 deliveries in ODIs alone, and getting 355 wickets across formats, of which 255 are in ODIs. Girls and women can indeed play a great deal of very fine cricket.
Jhulan Goswami’s two-decade-long international career ‘monumental’, says BCCI
