The India Women’s team don’t owe it to anyone

It’s the sort of sight that can be the defining image of an entire campaign. Smriti Mandhana, slumped to her chair, almost in tears. As hosts, India were supposed to be the closest competition to Australia, now – with three losses in a row, they look far from it.

In the hours that followed, there was the expected debate on social media, mostly focussed on the inability to clutch key moments. The England loss would have stung: chasing 289, India needed 55 from 53 balls with seven wickets in hand when Mandhana perished. They lost by four runs.

The previous two losses also came from a position of strength. Against Australia, they failed to defend 330. Against South Africa, they were hit by a Nadine de Klerk masterclass after having South Africa at 81-5 in a chase of 252. In those two games, they missed a sixth bowler.

It’s a recurring theme that’s resurfaced – India Women can’t hold out when the pressure is on. The loss in the 2017 World Cup final is still fresh for many. Since then, the 2020 T20 World Cup final and the 2022 Commonwealth Games final have only added to that sentiment.

Also read: So near, yet so far: Why India always fail to cross the final hurdle in global tournaments

The steady wave of criticism has a positive spin to it: it shows that the involvement is real, that there’s actual concern for a team that spent years seeking wider exposure and love. But there is a point after which it tips over unfairly. To a side that suddenly starts questioning women’s place in the sport.

After the England loss, a section ranging from fans to journalists took the high road to ask: the women’s team is getting everything, why aren’t they still delivering? Suddenly, the resources and facilities at play are under the scanner: when the team doesn’t perform, it’s almost made to seem that they don’t deserve what they have been equipped with.

Ahead of the New Zealand game, Sophie Devine could not help but feel for the India team, playing with the pressure of expectations.

“In all honesty, I can't begin to imagine the type of pressure that the Indian team is under,” she said ahead of the game. “I know when we played at a home World Cup, the pressure that we felt to perform in front of our home crowd, in front of our own country was at times overwhelming. I can't imagine what that's like with a billion people tuned into the TV screens and the expectation and the weight that's on their shoulders.

“I've got real empathy for them having to try and deal with that while also go out and perform.”

The unfair money question

In most debates around the women’s game in India, often laced in misogyny, money comes into the argument at some point or the other. The high-flying men’s team has some of the highest-paid athletes of the sport. Three years ago, when the BCCI introduced equal match fees for both men and women, it was perceived as charity of sorts, a theme that continues to make its way into tweets when the team is underperforming.

For context, a 2021 BBC Sport report said that 90 per cent of sports pay men and women equally at a major championship or event, two years before the ICC’s landmark decision to introduce equal prize pool for World Cups.

Also read: Equal prize money is welcome, but pay disparity in cricket remains a challenge

Back to India’s equal match fees: firstly, it isn’t a social aid extended to the India Women’s team. It’s a reflection and reward for professionals for their work. A female cricketer, just like any professional sportsperson, puts in a high level of effort and training to represent her team and improve their craft.

The old trope around “men’s cricket generates more revenue” needs to also consider the long-standing and deep-rooted inequality that the women’s team had to suffer for decades. As recently as twelve years ago, when India last hosted an ODI World Cup, the final was shifted out of the Wankhede Stadium to accommodate the Ranji Trophy final. At that time, former international Diana Edulji had called it an insult. Ex-cricketer and administrator Shubhangi Kulkarni had said: “It made us feel very small. It showed how important in the whole scheme of things women’s cricket was”.

In 2017, Edulji claimed that N Srinivsan, BCCI president from 2011 to 2013, once told her: “If I had my way, I wouldn’t let women’s cricket happen.” Historically, chauvinism ran deep. And, it was only in 2006 that the BCCI had to be merged with the Women’s Cricket Association of India – administrators of women’s cricket in the country until then – because the ICC decreed that all national boards have to field a women’s team, leaving the BCCI with no choice. Even now, women find little representation in high administrative posts, something that Mithali Raj recently flagged as an area of improvement.

Decades and decades of disparity and negligence have only started to heal. Unfortunately, the mentality shift hasn’t quite happened.

Still, Harmanpreet Kaur's team have destiny in their own hands. Beat New Zealand, and they will be in the semi-finals. Even if they lose that, they will still have a chance. And they have shown they can push the other semi-finalists close.

The WPL – not a silver bullet

Another argument that pops up is the Women’s Premier League, and its comparison to the golden goose and the gold standard that is the Indian Premier League. It wasn’t until 2023 that a proper franchise-run T20 competition found its way into Indian women’s cricket. The three editions have attempted to tap into India’s talent pool, unearth new faces like the IPL has, and transform India into a modern superpower.

Also read: ‘This is what we’ve dreamed of reaching’ – The WPL is realising its limitless potential

And yet, the tournament comes with its own flaws, and needs to extend beyond its current format of five teams. And by no means should it be expected to spring trophies out of nowhere, three editions in. It’s fair to remind that, since the first IPL in 2008, the India men’s team had to wait a further 16 years before a T20 World Cup came their way.

Also, a T20 tournament still in its nascent stages cannot be expected to magically make India a better side, even more so in the ODI format, where the two big issues have been run-accumulation in the middle overs, and a one-dimensional pace attack.

There are problems – but elsewhere

The criticism of India Women’s performance at World Cups is a valid one. They’ve reached the final twice (in 2005 and 2017), with three other semi-final appearances. The manner of their collapse in the 2017 final, and their recent missteps in the 2025 edition have seen them being bracketed as a team that isn’t able to hold on to their nerves when needed.

It’s an area where the team lags behind other top contenders: mental conditioning. The ECB, for example, has a dedicated performance psychology team that works with coaches and players. Last year, India Women consulted with a sports psychologist to conduct sessions for the team, but a more cohesive setup is yet to be established.

More iterations of the WPL, where high-pressure situations and exposure to large crowds, should help the team work on some of their long-standing issues such as death-bowling, fielding and closing chases. Criticism on all those aspects is valid. And the effects of WPL on those should reflect in the system over time.

The WPL has helped them identify talents like Kranti Goud and Sree Charani and fast-track them into the national setup, but that alone cannot be a pathway. The three main Zonal and Inter-State tournaments need fine-tuning as well, and the age-group levels need a lot more visibility too. The effects of “more money” are yet to drip-feed into the lower rungs: as per a recent report, the BCCI currently spends 3.5x less on women’s domestic cricket, compared to men’s.

It’s also one of the rare times when the India Women’s team has stability at the helm around a World Cup. Between 2017 and 2023, the position of head coach changed hands six times. For the last two years, current coach Amol Muzumdar has been calling the shots.

This is still the team with the third-best win/loss ratio in Women’s ODIs since the last World Cup. They raised hopes of a historic series win against Australia weeks before this World Cup. They could still go on to lift the title. But that’s not the point.

Whether India qualify for the knockouts or not, the sickening mentality to challenge the very identity of the women’s team needs to stop. Yes, question the team’s selection. Question the bench strength, the gap at lower levels, the need for more structure and resources. All of that will only help the game grow. But stop questioning their right to be there. The India Women’s team don’t owe it to anyone.