India's Women's Cricket: Still Waiting for the World to Notice?

30 April 2025

“Has Women's Cricket in India fulfilled the promise and potential that the 2017 ODI World Cup in England, not quite. When can it happen? Hey, maybe if all things go well in September, October, November this year.”
Colette Wong sat down with sports journalist, cricket commentator, and documentary producer, Annesha Ghosh, to discuss the state of the women’s game in India.
At the international level, the India Women’s team’s performance in reaching the final at the 2017 World Cup raised expectations, and, since then, they have been striving to go one better.
“They have been on the brink of something since finishing runners-up in that tournament. They've gone on to consistently make a lot of the knockout phases of ICC world tournaments and also they ended up winning silver at the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games. They've not gone to win that elusive maiden senior women's world title, which they have come so very close to winning every single time they've taken the stage in a world tournament and as well as in the Commonwealth Games. They sure did win gold at the Asian Games, but it's the Asian Games. They didn't have an Australia or an England to challenge or a West Indies for that matter.”
That Commonwealth campaign deserves an additional mention, as in the bronze medal match India faced and defeated England, the team who had beaten them in the World Cup Final a year earlier.
“It was like sweet revenge,” said Annesha,
Even so, that yearned-for title remained out of reach, which means this year’s World Cup, staged in India, is all the more important. Indeed, the repercussions of a victory could impact the domestic game. The Women’s Premier League still features just five teams in its third season. There are calls to push for a sixth in 2026.

“Whether expanding is the right call or not is not really the mood point. I see it as whether India going to win that ODI World Cup or not this year. If that happens, full stop, period, end of sentence, there will be expansion.”

The WPL, for its part, Annesha explained, has strengthened the women’s game at all levels through the high calibre of international cricketers taking part.
“To have an Elyse Perry, Alyssa Healey, they've achieved everything that they needed to or that is to be achieved, say for the Olympic medal now on the international scale. So for them to have become the ambassadors they have, it's really heartening to see and it's benefiting the Indian players, the domestic players and the capped ones alike. And I have said this very many times, the day India go on to win their maiden senior women's ICC world title or that Commonwealth Games gold or that Olympic gold, India will have a lot to thank for as far as Australia is concerned– the likes of Healey, Lanning, Perry Gardner, England players are concerned– the likes of Heather [Knight], Nat Sciver-Brunt, and very many others, player, now coach, Charlotte Edwards, West Indies players, New Zealand players, because all of the knowledge transference that is happening is massive. And that to a great extent is happening through the WPL.”
Annesha told us she thinks it’s time for India’s women to secure a big trophy, but even without achieving such starry heights, the players deserve to be celebrated – and not only for their skills with bat and ball.
“India is not an easy society to be for women and sport and society are intrinsically connected. And female athletes in our country, in my country India, play a huge role because sport has been the preserve of men and to see Indian women push a lot of societal obstacles and overcome them. They make us who we are as a resilient tribe, women.
“And I take a lot of pride in that because I have seen them, this bunch of players go from absolutely, absolute nobodies to become Instagram accounts with 10 million followers to raking in hundreds of thousands of dollars at the stroke of a pen or the strike of a gavel at a WPL auction. I've seen them hug their fans, little girls and boys who said, I cannot believe I'm meeting you, Smriti or Harman or Jemima or Deepthi. And they have been in tears. And I've seen them take that moment to appreciate.
“And I've seen their families also make a lot of sacrifices to bring up these young girls and turn them into women who are responsible towards themselves, their families and the society. And it's just a matter of time. I'm a firm believer that they will show that responsibility on the field in terms of winning that elusive maiden Senior Women's World Title.”