Playing On Your TV: Girls Aloud

The youthful Indian women’s team that took the field in the T20 World Cup turned a new corner in their game: brash, clinical, exhilarating

- Soumitra Bose

“NEVER be let down. You have been amazing throughout and you shall have the trophy in your hand one day. Keep believing!” More than being wise and motivating, it’s the person from whom they came that should be the biggest pick-up for the Indian team after they were undone by Australia at the ICC T20 World Cup final in Melbourne on March 8: the great Vivian Richards. In a format where the margin for error is slim, Indian bowlers carved one victory after another till the law of averages caught up with them. One of the youngest teams in the World Cup, India flunked in all departments on D-Day. Skittled out for 99, Harmanpreet Kaur’s team lost the final by 85 runs to give Meg Lanning’s Australia a record fifth title.

It ended in heartbreak, but the pulsating cricket the Indian team played and the body-language it displayed not only caught the attention of Richards, Sehwag or Kohli, but leading sports marketing professionals too. In the post-Mithali Raj era, the Indian women’s team is aggressive and ready to stare down the opposition. It reminds one of Sourav Ganguly’s team—confident and cocky—and its reincarnation in Kohli’s Team India.

As has been pointed out, the final, in its denouement, resembled the 2003 men’s WC final in Johannesburg. Ricky Ponting plundered the runs after Mathew Hayden and Adam Gilchrist that day, much like Alyssa Healy and Beth Mooney put on a match-winning 100-plus opening stand at the MCG. At the Wanderers, India lost by 125 runs, but Ganguly’s men had become the face of a metamorphosed Indian cricket culture.

Brett Lee, who was part of Ponting’s 2003 World Cup winning team, shared India’s disappointment of losing a final after dominating a tournament, but echoed Richards: “This is not the end for them but the start.”