New Delhi, Nov 20 (IANS) The Delhi and District Cricket Association (DDCA) director Shyam Sharma said India’s 2025 Women’s ODI World Cup triumph is a watershed moment, saying the way the 50-over trophy win in 1983 reshaped men’s cricket, the same will now happen for women’s cricket in the country.

“This is very big and humungous. With the way Sachin wrote and the thought that has been in the minds of many Indians, it is that the way the 1983 World Cup win changed the face of men’s cricket in India, this World Cup win will change the profile of women’s cricket in the country. This era hasn’t begun now – it’s been going on for the last five-six years. When Jay Shah was BCCI Secretary, women’s cricket got wings.”

“He got (international) match fees equalised and began the WPL, a platform which began giving recognition to women cricketers, and people have got to know who are the players and what their skillsets are. People previously used to know only 2-3 players, now around 17.5 crore have seen the matches.”

“Now we get 100 calls every day from parents asking what age we should send them to academies. Cricket has become a career for girls, and it’s the way forward for all. Right now, that happiness hasn’t sunk in yet, and in the words of the Prime Minister, there are more milestones to achieve,” said Sharma in an exclusive conversation with IANS, on the sidelines of an event by OneDice on Thursday.

Delhi had representation in the Women’s ODI World Cup winning squad via opener Pratika Rawal and has dual presence in the national women’s selection committee via former players – current panel chairperson Amita Sharma and Jaya Sharma. Sharma hoped that Delhi CM Rekha Gupta would announce a reward soon for Pratika.

“It is great and joyful news for Delhi that Amita Sharma and Jaya Sharma are the two national women’s selectors from Delhi. But the girls from Delhi, like Pratika Rawal, are doing well, as are other girls from all over India. I am just waiting for the day when our Chief Minister will announce the award for Pratika because every other state has already announced it, but only Pratika is left,” said Sharma.

In the light of the Women’s ODI World Cup win, Sharma also said about his wish to now see pay parity in central contracts. “I have that dream, and let’s see how much time it takes. But I have a dream that one day, when the girls will also get the same (central) contact fees as the boys.”

“In the coming 10 years, you will see that mixed teams will also be formed. Not in the BCCI or ICC tournaments, but in the outside tournaments, like if 8 boys are playing, then 3 girls will play mandatorily, and such a time will come, and competition will be very hard.”

Delhi has emerged as a significant hub for women’s cricket development, and Sharma said the work under President Rohan Jaitley has been bearing good results. “We have been doing a lot. I am telling you, Rohan Jaitley has tried a lot. He said that previously, whatever was left from the men’s team uniform would go to the women’s team. But he did it separately for them. He has given them a 5-star hotel stay and a lot of facilities.”

“We say that we have made the infrastructure so good for the girls, and if they do well, then Delhi cricket will move forward. That’s what we think, and we at Delhi cricket are working hard for it. Our 110 clubs have been subsidized by INR 2.5 lakh per year. After that, Rohan said that whoever fields a women’s cricket team will get INR 1 lakh extra. This is an incentive, and that’s how we are promoting women’s cricket.”

“We have been working on women’s cricket for a long time in Delhi. The vision of Mr. Rohan Jaitley was that when we started the Delhi Premier League, we also started a women’s cricket league. We had only 85 girls who were playing, so it was difficult to make four teams.”

“But after that, we made a women’s cricket league (by DDCA), in which 645 girls participated. This time, when our DPL auction happened, our pool was more than 200. This shows how much girls are participating and moving forward, and the future of women’s cricket is very good,” he concluded.

–IANS

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