When Indian Women’s cricket team captain
Mithali Raj created history as the highest run-scorer in women’s international cricket on Wednesday, crossing the 6,000-run milestone in ODIs, the news hardly escaped the attention of ‘cricket lovers’ in India. Captain of the men’s team,
Virat Kohli responded with a congratulatory message on social media alright, but did the unthinkable — he mixed up the Hyderabad girl and her team-mate,
Poonam Raut, in a Facebook post. Trolls were unforgiving in the comments and before long, the flamboyant skipper pulled down his post. But the irony wasn’t lost on anyone who cared to see.
How could Kohli not identify a seasoned cricketer like Mithali, who has been on the scene for the past 18 years — long before Kohli made his First Class debut against Tamil Nadu in 2006? Why, he’d recently even shared with her the honour of being nominated for the fourth highest civilian award, Padma Shri — which she won, BTW! But why blame Captain Kohli alone?
In a cricket-obsessed nation like India, where the
Men In Blue are accorded superhero status, other sports are relegated to a lower — or often non-existent — sphere. Even when it comes to cricket, the divide between the men’s and women’s teams is rather stark. Sure, they enjoy different levels of popularity, but choosing to largely remain oblivious to the latter’s achievements proves that we are still a male chauvinistic society. Barring their last two defeats, the women’s team has shown splendid form since the start of their World Cup campaign. Yet, very few from the tweet-happy brigade have been acknowledging them.When we scanned the Twitter accounts of these 11 social media-active cricket folk, the results hardly surprised us — the support is scant. Birthday tweets for former India captains, MS
Dhoni (July 7) and
Sourav Ganguly (July 8), have far exceeded words of appreciation and encouragement for Mithali and team.
On the eve of their first World Cup game, Mithali was asked who her favourite male cricketer is. Can Virat name five women cricketers from India offhand? He could. He may not. India won’t care.