There is one thing that India’s maiden victory, in the ICC Women’s World Cup 2025 on November 2 at the D Y Patil Stadium in Navi Mumbai against formidable South Africa, has ensured. We will never look at women in sports in quite the same dismissive way as we have done in the past. Traditionally, they have had to grind harder to gain visibility in comparison to men, and cricket has been no exception till the past few years.
From getting low viewership and facing indifference from sports viewers at the start of the series to having the whole nation sacrifice their sleep and stand by to the triumphant end, our women in blue bled the tricolor when they lifted the World Cup. This historic win created a cultural moment as the team commanded attention with their strong will and hard work in a biased sporting ecosystem that favours men.
And then there were the low moments. Jemimah Rodrigues scored an unbeaten 127 runs to knock Australia out of the World Cup in the semi-finals, a performance that was expected to make her the darling of the masses. Then she made a “mistake”. She first thanked Jesus. Her “fans” showed their disapproval and the trolls were out in full strength. This wasn’t the first time Jemimah faced harassment in the name of her faith leading to her struggling with severe anxiety. In a space where a player should be seen as nothing but a player, the public chose to focus on her religious identity.
This speaks volume about the mindset of the Indian sports audience. To Jemimah’s credit, she did not allow low blows to affect her performance and everyone cheered and praised her as she led the team into their final, winning match. The double standards can be mind-boggling!
Her faith, which has sustained her through some dark, sad times in her cricketing life, will always be of importance to Jemimah Rodrigues, who has displayed such strength and resilience when nothing seemed to be going her way. Her fans should respect that as one of the reasons she doggedly plays good cricket. You cannot call someone unpatriotic at one level, while hailing her as a hero in the same breath because she made the country and women’s cricket look good.
But this is not Jemimah’s headache alone. It is ours as we decide how we want the world to view us – as a nation of diversity in sports which we embrace, or as groupings based on bias and bigotry only too willing to pull down those we view as different from us.
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