It’s a welcome development, but is it enough? Also, doesn’t the format suggest it’s been crammed into the calendar without much planning?
Srinidhi Ramanujam
Thursday marks the return of red-ball women’s cricket to India’s domestic calendar after a gap of six years, with the Senior Women’s Inter-Zonal Multi-Day Trophy kicking off in Pune. It was only added to the calendar in March after India won the one-off Tests against Australia and England at home last December. And while female cricketers past and present are happy to get what they have, Saba Karim, the former BCCI head of women’s cricket, feels it is “just the beginning” and there will be more.
“It’s a step in the right direction because India have started playing Tests, it makes sense to have a very strong red-ball match at home,” Karim told ESPNcricinfo. “I think this is just the beginning because this year, due to lack of time, it is being played at an inter-zonal level. But I am sure in the future we may see some red-ball international cricket as well.
“If we can draw an analogy from men’s cricket: India’s men’s domestic cricket is the strongest and most competitive among all cricket-playing countries. That is why team India is now the superpower in international cricket. This is the lead women’s cricket needs to take. I think this is what BCCI wants to do at this stage. If you have a strong domestic cricket, which includes the red ball, then we will see similar results from the women’s team in international as well. level.”
In terms of women’s Test cricket, there is the Ashes series, which is regular, but overall, there have only been 26 women’s Tests in the last ten years. And India – one of four teams, the others being Australia, England and South Africa, playing women’s Tests – have played just six in the last ten years, four of them from 2021 to now. Last August, Harmanpreet Kaur had called for the resumption of long-form domestic women’s cricket and more recently, Meg Lanning told it like it was when she said: “It’s either more or you don’t go there at all”.
“We don’t have much time to practice as such, but what we need is a change of mentality. The main thing about playing the long format is to be able to switch on and off. You might have to bat for a long time and then , get right back in the bowl. We have to be ready all the time.”Devika Vaidya
Former India captain and coach Purnima Rau echoed Karim, saying younger players “wouldn’t know the gist” of the game if they only played white-ball cricket.
The inter-zonal tournament had started the 2014–15 season as a two-day event, with the next three seasons being played in a three-day format before it was scrapped. This time, the BCCI made it a six-team tournament, with the North East Zone added to the North Zone, East Zone, West Zone, South Zone and Central Zone. A total of five matches will be held. Thursday will see East Zone vs North East Zone and West Zone vs Central Zone in action in the two quarter finals. The North Zone and the South Zone were placed in the semi-finals immediately after a draw. They will meet the winners of the first two games from April 3, with the title race starting on April 9.
“The [multi-day games for women at domestic level] it started when we entered the [BCCI’s] pass in 2006, two-day games for all states. When we played cricket, our semi-final was two days and the final was three days. The kind of experience in planning an innings, batting in the middle for longer, the art of bowling, the art of batting, the art of captaincy is always there in the multi-day game,” Rau, who represented India between 1993 and 2000 in five Tests and 33 ODIs, he pointed out.
“Somewhere down the line, the orthodox game, a game of basics, will work here. The girls think T20 and slam-bang cricket will help us in this format; it might help them, but after playing a lot of multi -day games, they will decipher for themselves if this type of game will suit them. To start, leave it to the orthodox way of playing – occupying the crease, working with your singles and twos. These are the things that will help them.
“Test match wins [in December] they have pushed them [the BCCI] to do something. It’s good that it’s happening to the new generation.”
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Just over ten days after the second season of the Women’s Premier League concluded on March 17, Indian stars like Harmanpreet, Smriti Mandhana, Jemimah Rodrigues and Yastika Bhatia will be in action in the red-ball tournament. In terms of preparation, the teams had to make do with only a few days of practice as this was somewhat squeezed into the calendar.
It may be more of a “mindset change” though, especially for players who participated in the WPL and are not out of touch.
“We don’t have much time to practice as such, but what we need is a change in mindset,” Devika Vaidya, the Indian player representing the West Zone who had also played in the 2015-16 tournament, told ESPNcricinfo. “The main thing about playing the big format is being able to switch on and off. You might have to bat for a long time and then come right back to bowl. We have to be ready all the time.
“That patience, to create partnerships or trap the batter, you need skill to do that. All of that comes over time as you play more games and gain experience. And then it becomes a little bit easier to change the mindset. If the tests regularly, then we have to practice changing mindsets as well. Our skills will be tested in reality. That’s the fun part of this format.”
Vaidya did not find a team in this edition of WPL after playing for UP Warriorz in 2023. During the leave, she changed her fitness routines, her training consisted of some workouts to build muscle and improve her stamina, just like a player Preparing for multi-day cricket would work.
“Luckily, I had already made changes in my training,” he said. “So I was on the same track and then they announced [the new tournament]. So for me it is very simple to continue what I was already doing. Before any T20 tournament, we tend to do a lot of strength training. In cricket, we don’t have to run for long. But we need that stamina to play 100 overs in a day.
“When we play a tournament in March, it will be hot. When you play for a long time, there are chances of losing body mass. We have to maintain in this heat. We train more in the gym, build enough muscle mass and focus on endurance.”
There are a lot of players, now featured, who have had no senior level red ball experience coming into this competition. S Anusha, captain of Tamil Nadu and part of the South Zone team, belongs to this category. With no zonal-level camps organized ahead of the tournament, Anusha turned to Niranjana Nagarajan, the fast bowler who played two Tests in 2014, and current spin-bowling allrounder D Hemalatha, who was also part of the zonal red-ball tournament when last played
“I’ve bowled with the red ball at under-19 level, but before this tournament, I’ve been doing a lot of spot bowling and working on being consistent with line and length without trying too many variations, which I would do in short forms. ,” Anusha told ESPNcricinfo. “I spoke to Hemalatha and Niranjana to understand the mindset needed for this format. Niranjana and I have bowled together for the state, and she knows my bowling style well. She told me, ‘You have to be patient and show character.”
“It’s easy to lose focus when you’re playing cricket all day, so he was giving me advice on how to stay focused and be determined to pick up wickets.”
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It’s a start and there could be more, or so one hopes. The benefits are likely to be far-reaching.
The format of the tournament, however, could do with some thought and reflection. Just five games. Five teams, potentially, could end up playing just one game, and two teams, potentially, playing three. Is this fair? And are the players from the North East ready for cricket at this level?
“Competition should be a regular feature, not just with belts, but with [played among] the state groups. Especially the North-East players, who are yet to find their feet,” argued Rau. “I think the North East side players need to play more longer matches. We have to unearth talent there. I think the state teams should start playing [multi-day cricket]and to have another team for the north-east and not mix them with the big players.”
Maybe things will get better with time.
Srinidhi Ramanujam is deputy editor of ESPNcricinfo