The ICC Women's Cricket World Cup 2025 marks an important event in the international cricket calendar for women. The event has another significance as it records 50 years of international women's cricket for India.
For women, cricket began in India in 1969 with the establishment of the first women's cricket club, The Albies, in Mumbai. The start was not easy and in the 1970s, Mahendra Kumar Sharma, the then-biggest promoter of women's cricket, used to attract the crowd with USP, to see the women cricketers playing in skirts, on loudspeaker, sitting in an autorickshaw and moving on the streets of Lucknow.
At that time, the BCCI however never supported women cricket in India and didn’t consider taking them under their wings. At last the BCCI took women's cricket under its administration in 2006, when they were forced to and were left with no other alternative. As per the directive from the ICC (who had earlier taken control of international affairs), all its members were to integrate their women's cricket boards to foster development. Even then, initially all was not rosy and there was no honeymoon period. It was not a smooth sailing for women’s cricket in India.
