Indian Women's Spirited Show And The Unsporting Aussies

Despite the loss in the final, the performance of the Indian women’s team has made everybody SIT UP and take notice. In almost every match there has been some player or the other who has put her hand up and taken the team home.

There are some great old sayings like ‘the best-laid plans of mice and men of-ten go awry’, ‘man proposes but God disposes’. These apply to sport very well and in the current situation to women’s cricket. As the teams qualified for the semi-finals of the ICC Women’s World Cup, the talk in England was about an England-Australia final. It is understandable to an extent, since just like the Indian sub-continent salivates over an India v Pakistan game, so also in England and Australia it is clashes between the two countries that excite the followers most. Way back in 1983, every body in England was expecting an England v West Indies final and when India got through, by beating England, many Englishmen who had bought tickets for the final just sold them and what away somewhere else for a holiday. England returned the favour by spoiling India’s party, beating them in the semi-finals of the next edition of the World Cup in 1987, when everybody in the sub-continent was talking about an Indo-Pak final. Australia did the same to Pakistan and so instead of the old rivals from the sub-continent battling it out at the Eden Gardens it was the oldest rivals in cricket that clashed for the title and the Reliance Cup.